Category Chemistry/Nanotechnology

New compound may replace toxic mercury cadmium telluride and gallium arsenide in near-infrared devices. NIMS and the Tokyo Institute of Technology have jointly discovered that the chemical compound Ca3SiO is a direct transition semiconductor, making it a potentially promising infrared LED and infrared detector component. This compound — composed of calcium, silicon and oxygen — is cheap to produce and non-toxic. Many of the existing infrared semiconductors contain toxic chemical elements, such as cadmium and tellurium. Ca3SiO may be used to develop less expensive and safer near-infrared semiconductors.

Infrared wavelengths have been used for many purposes, including optical fiber communications, photovoltaic power gene...

A recent study, affiliated with UNIST has unveiled a novel system, capable of producing hydrogen and electricity quickly and effectively while cutting carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions significantly.

Published in the January 2021 issue of Nano Energy, this breakthrough has been carried out by Professor GunTae Kim and his research team in the School of Energy and Chemical Engineering at UNIST. In this study, the research team succeeded in developing a membrane-free aqueous metal-CO2 battery...

New findings may help unleash the potential of high-powered, solid-electrolyte lithium batteries. A new approach could help solve the longstanding problem of dendrite formation, which has hampered the development of new solid-state lithium-ion batteries.

As researchers push the boundaries of battery design, seeking to pack ever greater amounts of power and energy into a given amount of space or weight, one of the more promising technologies being studied is lithium-ion batteries that use a solid electrolyte material between the two electrodes, rather than the typical liquid.

But such batteries have been plagued by a tendency for branch-like projections of metal called dendrites to form on one of the electrodes, eventually bridging the electrolyte and shorting out the battery cel...

Hydrogen is a pollution-free energy source when it’s extracted from water using sunlight instead of fossil fuels. But current strategies for “splitting” or breaking apart water molecules with catalysts and light require the introduction of chemical additives to expedite the process. Now, researchers reporting in ACS ES&T Engineering have developed a catalyst that destroys medications and other compounds already present in wastewater to generate hydrogen fuel, getting rid of a contaminant while producing something useful.

Harnessing the sun’s energy to split water to make hydrogen fuel is a promising renewable resource, but it is a ...