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    Category Chemistry/Nanotechnology

    Ultra-lightweight Ceramic material withstands Extreme Temperatures

    February 16, 2019, Categories  Technology/Electronics, Chemistry/Nanotechnology, Physics

    The new ceramic aerogel is so lightweight that it can rest on a flower without damaging it.
    Credit: Xiangfeng Duan and Xiang Xu/UCLA

    Highly durable aerogel could ultimately be an upgrade for insulation on spacecraft. UCLA researchers and collaborators at eight other research institutions have created an extremely light, very durable ceramic aerogel. The material could be used for applications like insulating spacecraft because it can withstand the intense heat and severe temperature changes that space missions endure.

    Ceramic aerogels have been used to insulate industrial equipment since the 1990s, and they have been used to insulate scientific equipment on NASA’s Mars rover missions...

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    Laser-induced Graphene gets Tough, with help

    February 14, 2019, Categories  Physics, Technology/Electronics, Chemistry/Nanotechnology

    Rice University scientists have combined laser-induced graphene with a variety of materials to make robust composites for a variety of applications.
    Credit: Tour Group/Rice University

    Laser-induced graphene (LIG), a flaky foam of the atom-thick carbon, has many interesting properties on its own but gains new powers as part of a composite. The labs of Rice University chemist James Tour and Christopher Arnusch, a professor at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel, introduced a batch of LIG composites in the American Chemical Society journal ACS Nano that put the material’s capabilities into more robust packages.

    By infusing LIG with plastic, rubber, cement, wax or other materials, the labs made composites with a wide range of possible applications...

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    Scientists find a Cheaper way to Light up OLED screens

    February 10, 2019, Categories  Physics, Technology/Electronics, Chemistry/Nanotechnology

    Chemist Mark E. Thompson holds new copper-based LEDs invented by him and a team of chemists that could be a cheaper option for TV and smartphone screens to produce the color — including blue — and light. Right now, the industry relies on iridium, an expensive precious metal, for LED light and color.
    Credit: Mark E. Thompson, USC Dornsife

    USC Dornsife chemists have found a cheaper way to light up smartphone and TV screens, which could save manufacturers and consumers money without affecting visual quality. Copper is the answer, according to their study, published Feb. 8 in the journal Science.

    “The current technology that is in every Samsung Galaxy phone, high-end Apple iPhone and LG TV relies on iridium compounds for the colors and light on OLED screens,” says Mark E...

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    Liberal Sprinkling of Salt discovered around a Young Star

    February 10, 2019, Categories  Astronomy/Space, Chemistry/Nanotechnology

    Artist impression of Orion Source I, a young, massive star about 1,500 light-years away. New ALMA observations detected a ring of salt — sodium chloride, ordinary table salt — surrounding the star. This is the first detection of salts of any kind associated with a young star. The blue region (about 1/3 the way out from the center of the disk) represents the region where ALMA detected the millimeter-wavelength “glow” from the salts.
    Credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF; S. Dagnello

    A team of astronomers and chemists using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) has detected the chemical fingerprints of sodium chloride (NaCl) and other similar salty compounds emanating from the dusty disk surrounding Orion Source I, a massive, young star in a dusty cloud behind the Orion Nebula.

    “It’...

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