Category Technology/Electronics

New materials are created through deposition onto disks, which are then tested to determine their properties. Credit: Caltech

A new materials discovery approach puts solar fuels on the fast track to commercial viability. Combining computational with experimental approaches, researchers identify 12 new materials with use in solar fuels generators. Researchers at Caltech and Berkeley Lab have – in just 2 years – nearly doubled the number of materials known to have potential for use in solar fuels.

Researchers are exploring a range of target fuels, from hydrogen gas to liquid hydrocarbons, and producing any of these fuels involves splitting water...

Jun Wang (sitting), Christopher Eng (standing), Jiajun Wang (left, laptop screen), and Liguang Wang of Brookhaven National Laboratory used transmission x-ray microscopy combined with spectroscopy to produce the colored maps shown on the large screen. These maps reveal the structural expansion (and the resulting cracks/fractures) and chemical composition changes that occur as sodium ions (Fe, green) are added to and removed from iron sulfide (FeS, red) during the battery’s first discharge/charge cycle. The pristine iron sulfide (box in upper left) does not return to its original state after this cycle, as some sodium ions remain trapped in the core (box in lower right). As a result, there is an initial loss in battery capacity. Credit: Brookhaven National Laboratory

“We discovered that the ...

Members of the Jena-Xing Research Group – Debdeep Jena, Moudud Islam, Huili (Grace) Xing, Vladimir Protasenko, Kevin Lee and Shyam Bharadwaj – are pictured in front of one of the molecular beam epitaxy systems used in their latest work. Credit: Image courtesy of Cornell University

The darkest form of UV light, ie UV-C, is unique because of its reputation as a killer – of harmful organisms. With wavelengths of between 200 and 280 nanometers, this particular form of UV light penetrates the membranes of viruses, bacteria, mold and dust mites, attacking their DNA and killing them...

Jan Genzer et al. Sequential Self-folding of Polymer Sheets. Science Advances, March 2017 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1602417

Inspired by origami, North Carolina State University researchers have found a way to remotely control the order in which a 2D sheet folds itself into a 3D structure. “The sequence of folding is important in life as well as in technology,” says Genzer, the S. Frank and Doris Culberson Distinguished Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engin

eering at NC State. “On small length scales, sequential folding via molecular machinery enables DNA to pack efficiently into chromosomes and assists proteins to adopt a functional conformation. On large length scales, sequential folding via motors helps solar panels in satellites and space shuttles unfold in space...