Category Chemistry/Nanotechnology

‘Artificial leaf’ concept inspires research into solar-powered fuel production. Rice University researchers have created an efficient, low-cost device that splits water to produce hydrogen fuel.

The platform developed by the Brown School of Engineering lab of Rice materials scientist Jun Lou integrates catalytic electrodes and perovskite solar cells that, when triggered by sunlight, produce electricity...

Scientists exploring Mars and analysing Martian meteorite samples have found organic compounds essential for life: nitrogen-bearing organics in a 4-billion-year-old Martian meteorite. With a new high-spatial resolution in-situ N-chemical speciation technique, they found organic materials – either synthesized locally or delivered during the Noachian – preserved intact in carbonate minerals over a long geological period. Their presence requires abiotic or biotic N-fixation and ammonia storage, suggesting early Mars had a less oxidizing environment than today.

Because carbonate miner...

New method turns foam into higher value rubber and hard plastics. Researchers have developed a new method for upcycling polyurethane foams, the spongy material found in mattresses, insulation, furniture cushions and shoes.

This process, developed by researchers at Northwestern University and the University of Minnesota, first involves mixing postconsumer polyurethane foam waste with a catalyst solution that allows the foam to become malleable. Next, the method uses a “twin-screw” extrusion process that both removes air from the foam to create a new material in the shape of a hard, durable plastic or soft, flexible film as well as remolds the material.

This allows foam waste to be processed into higher quality ru...

To address plastic pollution plaguing the world’s seas and waterways, Cornell University chemists have developed a new polymer that can degrade by ultraviolet radiation, according to research published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

“We have created a new plastic that has the mechanical properties required by commercial fishing gear. If it eventually gets lost in the aquatic environment, this material can degrade on a realistic time scale,” said lead researcher Bryce Lipinski, a doctoral candidate in the laboratory of Geoff Coates, professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Cornell University. “This material could reduce persistent plastic accumulation in the environment.”

Commercial fishing contributes to about half of all floating plastic waste that ends ...