Category Environment/Geology

Fabrication process of the Au-doped MnO2 electrodes. b,c) STEM images of the Au-doped MnO2. The inset of (c) indicates the intensity difference between Au-occupied columns and undoped MnO atomic columns.

A simple approach to synthesize novel environmentally friendly manganese dioxide ink by using glucose has been developed by a group of scientists. The MnO2 ink could be used for the production of light, thin, flexible and high performance energy storage devices via ordinary printing or even home-used printers. The capacity of the MnO2 ink supercapacitor is more than 30X higher than that of a commercial capacitor of the same weight of active material (e.g...

Researchers have developed a method for synthesising organic molecules very selectively, by assembling simple molecules and using an enzyme from E. coli (FSA: D-fructose-6-phosphate aldolase), which acts as a biocatalyst.

This is a significant step forward since it replicates the formation of carbohydrates in conditions resembling those that presumably initiated life on the Earth (prebiotic conditions) and because it allows relatively large organic molecules to be obtained very selectively and efficiently. Furthermore, it is a process with few steps, that does not use organic solvents and generates no waste, and it has great potential in chemistry, especially for obtaining molecules and active ingredients of interest (drugs, supplements, etc.).

Prof...

Interfacial functionalization steps.

An international team has succeeded in considerably increasing the efficiency for direct solar water splitting with a tandem solar cell whose surfaces have been selectively modified. The new record tops the previous 12.4%. Until now, manufacturing of solar hydrogen at the industrial level has failed due to the costs, however. This is because the efficiency of artificial photosynthesis, i.e. the energy content of the hydrogen compared to that of sunlight, has simply been too low to produce hydrogen from the sun economically.

Matthias May at TU Ilmenau and the HZB Institute for Solar Fuels, processed and surveyed about one hundred samples in his excellent doctoral dissertation to achieve this...

New work demonstrates the planet’s remaining fossil fuel resources would be sufficient to melt nearly all of Antarctica if burned, leading to a 160 to 200 ft rise in sea level. Because so many major cities are at or near sea level, this would put many highly populated areas where more than a billion people live under water, including NYC and DC.

“Our findings show that if we do not want to melt Antarctica, we can’t keep taking fossil fuel carbon out of the ground and just dumping it into the atmosphere as CO2 like we’ve been doing,” Caldeira said. “Most previous studies of Antarctic have focused on loss of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Our study demonstrates that burning coal, oil, and gas also risks loss of the much larger East Antarctic Ice Sheet.”

Although Antarctica has already b...