Category Technology/Electronics

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...

i-Motif DNA structures have previously been utilised for many different nanotechnological applications, but all have used changes in pH to fold the DNA. Herein we describe how copper(II) cations can alter the conformation of i-motif DNA into an alternative hairpin structure which is reversible by chelation with EDTA

Scientists can now ‘switch’ the structure of DNA using copper salts and EDTA. Ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid is an agent commonly found in shampoo and other household products. The applications for this discovery include nanotechnology – where DNA is used to make tiny machines, and in DNA-based computing – where computers are built from DNA rather than silicon...

Researchers are generating carbon nanofibers (above) from CO2 , removing a greenhouse gas from the air to make products. Credit: Stuart Licht, Ph.D.

Finding a technology to shift carbon dioxide, the most abundant anthropogenic greenhouse gas, from a climate change problem to a valuable commodity has long been a dream. Now, a team of chemists have developed a technology to economically convert CO2 directly into carbon nanofibers for industrial and consumer products. “Such nanofibers are used to make strong carbon composites, such as those used in the Boeing Dreamliner, as well as in high-end sports equipment, wind turbine blades and a host of other products.”

Previously, the researchers had made fertilizer and cement without emitting CO2. Licht calls his approach “diamonds from the sky...

A snake generates friction at the points needed to move forwards only and prevents its scales from being worn off by too much friction. Researchers of KIT have found a way to transfer this feature to components of movable systems. In this way, durability of hip prostheses, computer hard disks or smartphones might be enhanced.

“Friction and wear are two of the biggest challenges in systems of several individual components,” Christian Greiner of the Institute for Applied Materials says. A solution is found in nature: Snakes, such as the ball python, or lizards, such as the sandfish skink, use friction to move forwards, but can reduce it to a minimum thanks to their scales...