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Opening the path to high-efficiency hydrogen production without expensive precious metals

A research team has successfully designed and developed a proprietary non-precious metal oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalyst featuring a layered structure optimized for anion exchange membrane water electrolysis (AEMWE) environments.

The study, published in the journal ACS Nano, is particularly significant in that it proposes a novel catalyst design strategy capable of simultaneously achieving high efficiency and durability while reducing reliance on expensive precious metal catalysts. The team was led by Dr. Sung Mook Choi of the Energy & Environment Materials Research Division at the Korea Institute of Materials Science (KIMS), in collaboration with a team headed by Professor Seung-Hwa Lee at Changwon National University.

Anion exchange membrane water electrolysis (AEMWE) operates under alkaline conditions, offering a structural advantage in that relatively low-cost non-precious metal catalysts can be employed in place of expensive precious metals. For this reason, AEMWE has attracted considerable attention as a cost-effective and inherently safe hydrogen production technology.

Scientists harness quantum tunneling to boost heavy water production efficiency

A study by scientists at Hunan University introduces a new hydrogen isotope separation method that leverages proton quantum tunneling to produce heavy water, overcoming the key physical limitation faced by current methods that have made the production process difficult and expensive for decades.

According to results published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, this new strategy achieves a record-high H2O separation factor of 276 at room temperature by designing through-barriers that allow hydrogen nuclei to pass through them via quantum tunneling, leaving deuterium behind.

By leveraging quantum mechanics, the method could pave the way for cleaner and more efficient production of a critical material for future energy technologies.

3D imaging reveals messy-looking supraparticles can be nearly perfect crystals inside

Researchers at Utrecht University have quantitatively mapped the three-dimensional structure of photonic supraparticles for the first time. Supraparticles are microscopic spheres composed of thousands of smaller colloidal particles. Until now, researchers could only examine the outer surface of these structures. Using a combination of super-resolution microscopy and machine learning, the team shows that particles that appear disorganized on the outside are often almost perfectly crystalline on the inside.

The paper is published in the journal Advanced Materials.

Blue morpho butterflies owe their vibrant color to the internal structure of their wings, rather than pigment. The arrangement of particles on a microscopic scale causes light to be reflected in such a way that the butterflies appear intensely blue, and that the color looks the same from every viewing angle.

3D-printed photonic lanterns combine up to 37 multimode lasers into one fiber

Researchers have developed a microscopic 3D-printed optical device that can efficiently combine light from dozens of small semiconductor lasers into a single multimode optical fiber with very low loss. The team demonstrated photonic lanterns that multiplex 7, 19, and 37 multimode VCSEL lasers directly into a fiber while preserving brightness and easing alignment constraints. By enabling scalable incoherent beam combining of many multimode lasers, the technology could simplify and improve high-power laser systems, optical communications, and other photonic applications where efficiently delivering large optical power through fibers is critical.

A new study published in Nature Communications by Ph.D. student Yoav Dana, under the guidance of Professor Dan M. Marom and his team at the Institute of Applied Physics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, demonstrate a significant breakthrough in system scale and miniaturization for an optical beam combining apparatus, as those required in high-power laser systems.

The research, conducted in collaboration with Civan Lasers, introduces a novel 3D-printed microscale Photonic Lantern (PL) designed for the efficient incoherent combining of multimode sources. This innovation addresses the long-standing challenge of coupling light from large Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser (VCSEL) arrays, each of said VCSEL sources being multimoded, into multimode fibers (MMFs) while preserving the brightness and modal capacity of the system.

Electron microscopy maps protein landscapes that drive photosynthesis

Research led by scientists at Washington State University has revealed insights on how plants form a microscopic landscape of proteins crucial to photosynthesis, the basis of Earth’s food and energy chain. The discovery provides a new view of the molecular engine that converts sunlight into bioenergy and could enable future fine-tuning of crops for higher yields and other useful traits.

Colleagues at WSU, the University of Texas at Austin, and the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel used a novel, technology-powered approach to peer inside plant leaf cells and visualize the landscape of the photosynthetic membrane—the ribbon-like structure where plants harvest sunlight. The findings were recently published in the journal Science Advances.

“These membranes are highly efficient biological solar cells,” said the study’s principal investigator and corresponding author, Helmut Kirchhoff. “They convert sunlight energy into chemical energy that fuels not only the plant’s metabolism but that of most life on Earth.”

Scientists control ‘free-flowing’ electric currents with light

By controlling magnetic fields using light, a team of researchers led by NTU scientists has solved a long-standing challenge to precisely direct electric currents produced by quantum materials. Their findings unlock new avenues for controlling the flow of electricity through such materials and could herald the age of energy-efficient quantum computing devices. The research is published in Nature in January.

Like water moving through lakes and rivers, electrons in electric currents encounter resistance when flowing through electronic devices. This resistance generates large amounts of heat, which poses a problem for large computing facilities such as data centers and quantum computers, incurring major costs for cooling.

With artificial intelligence driving the demand for more computing applications, there is a need to produce electricity that flows without resistance to avoid generating excessive amounts of heat. These “free-flowing” electric currents could pave the way for novel low-power electronics and new quantum computing technologies.

Miniature laser technology could bring lab testing into your home

A research team at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, has developed new laser technology that could lead to tiny, cost-effective biosensors. The sensors integrate lasers and optics together on a centimeter-sized chip, which could move testing from hospitals to patients’ homes. This, in turn, would free up hospital beds and reduce visits to clinics.

The team’s study, “Flat Plasmonic Biosensor with an On-Chip Metagrating-Integrated Laser,” is published in ACS Sensors.

By studying how various biomolecules interact with each other—for example, antibodies in the immune system and xenobiotic antigens—researchers can gain valuable insights leading to new medicines and vaccines or assess whether a sample contains signs of infection.

Study shows spiral sound can shift sideways

A new University of Mississippi study shows that some sound waves don’t just move forward—they also move slightly to the side. Understanding this movement could help researchers develop more precise acoustic tools. Likun Zhang, associate professor of physics and astronomy and senior scientist at the National Center for Physical Acoustics, published his team’s study on the behavior of spiral sound waves in Physical Review Letters.

The experiment is the first measurement of the Hall Effect as it applies to acoustics. The Hall Effect occurs when something traveling forward—traditionally an electric current—is deflected slightly to the side by an external influence such as a magnetic field.

“About five years ago, our group extended the concept of the Hall Effect to acoustics, where we predicted that this would be the case,” Zhang said. “But this follow-up is the first time that we’ve been able to say, experimentally, ‘Here is that shift, and we can prove that it’s there.’”

How does snow gather on a roof? Simulation considers turbulence alongside snowflake size

No two snowflakes may be the same, but models that fail to take these variations into consideration often fall short when calculating the way snow accumulates on roofs. In Physics of Fluids, researchers from Harbin Institute of Technology in China modeled the way snow gathers on a roof based on snowflake size and distribution.

“In cold regions, snow load is a critical factor in structural design,” said author Qingwen Zhang. “However, traditional models often simplify snow as a uniform material with a single particle size, overlooking the natural heterogeneity of snowflake sizes and distributions.”

Astronomers Spot Bizarre Supernova That Could Unlock the Secret of Dark Energy

A rare gravitationally lensed supernova could help astronomers determine how fast the universe is expanding and shed light on dark energy. Astronomers may be closer to understanding one of the greatest mysteries in cosmology: dark energy, the unknown force thought to be driving the accelerating e

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