Category Physics

Graphene drives potential for Next-gen Green Fuel-Efficient Cars

>>converting heat into electricity. Graphene’s range of superlative properties and small size causes the transfer of heat through the material to slow leading to the desired lower operating temperatures. Harvesting heat produced by a car’s engine which would otherwise be wasted and using it to recharge the car’s batteries or powering the air-conditioning system could be a significant feature in the next generation of hybrid cars.

The average car currently loses around 70% of energy generated through fuel consumption to heat. Utilising that lost energy requires a thermoelectric material which can generate an electrical current from the application of heat...

This artist’s conception symbolically represents complex organic molecules, known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, seen in the early universe. These large molecules, comprised of carbon and hydrogen, are among the building blocks of life. NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope is the first telescope to see polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons so early–10 billion years further back in time than seen previously. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle (SSC)

DIBs  (diffuse interstellar bands) are a collection of about 400 absorption bands that show up in spectra of light that reaches the earth after traversing interstellar medium. Indications exist they may arise from the presence of large hydrocarbon molecules. Recent experiments lend novel credibility to this hypothesis.

Among the hydrocarbons that are p...

This corresponds to half of the pressure of Earth’s core. With their high-pressure experiments the Mainz researchers have thus not only set a new record for superconductivity, their findings have also highlighted a potential new way to transport current at room temperature with no loss.

For many solid-state physicists, superconductors that are suitable for use at room temperature are still a dream. Special copper oxide ceramics, so-called cuprates, took the leading positions in terms of transition temperature, i.e., the temperature at which the material loses its resistance. The record for a ceramic of this type is roughly -140C at normal air pressure -109C at high pressure. In the ceramics, a special, unconventional form of superconductivity occurs...

The team created devices to stablise 2D materials. Credit: Image courtesy of University of Manchester

Newly developed 2D crystals are capable of delivering designer materials with revolutionary new properties. By protecting the new reactive crystals with more stable 2D materials, such as graphene, via computer control in a specially designed inert gas chamber environments, these materials can be successfully isolated to a single atomic layer for the first time.

University of Manchester team demonstrate how tailored fabrication methods can make these previously inaccessible materials useful...