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Category: chemistry – Page 18

Smart sensor identifies present molecules by remembering the past

Most sensors are designed to do only one thing: detect what passes through them. But what if a sensor could do more? To create a new generation of technology, researchers have looked to living systems for inspiration. If a sensor could detect molecules, could it also remember previous interactions and selectively respond to them?

Researchers have developed a device that does exactly that on a tiny scale, laying the groundwork for a new generation of smart molecular sensors.

In an article recently published in ACS Nano, researchers from SANKEN at the University of Osaka and collaborating institutions created an autonomous solid-state nanopore that can sense molecules, generate electrical signals and retain memories of recent events without external control. Unlike conventional nanopores, which act as passive channels, the new device continuously changes its own structure through chemical reactions, creating a dynamic sensing environment that responds to molecules passing through it.

PRX Intelligence publishes its first papers

The American Physical Society’s newest highly selective, open access journal, PRX Intelligence, has published its inaugural papers. The studies demonstrate how artificial intelligence and machine learning methods can be used to advance scientific knowledge and capabilities across the physical sciences — from neural networks that streamline molecular simulations to data-driven learning schemes that accelerate quantum embedding workflows.

As AI and machine learning transform the physical sciences, PRX Intelligence is designed to provide a multidisciplinary platform for research pioneering the development and application of these approaches. Building on the foundation of Physical Review X, the journal publishes open access articles expected to have substantial and lasting impact. It welcomes studies that apply AI and machine learning across theory, simulation, and experimentation in physics and related fields — including computer science, mathematics, engineering, materials science, chemistry, biology, and earth and environmental sciences. Relevant topics include discovery and synthesis, physics-informed learning, data-driven approaches, machine learning pipelines for observational platforms, and more. Articles have flexible formats and lengths and may include research papers, perspectives, roadmaps, tutorials, and more.

PRX Intelligence will waive article publication charges for manuscripts submitted or transferred before Jan. 1, 2027. And like all other APS journals, it will always waive these charges for researchers in low-and middle-income countries. Sign up for email updates to keep up with the latest news from the journal.

Oil droplets remodel themselves, swallow their surroundings like living cells

NYU researchers have made microscopic oil droplets in water do something usually reserved for living cells: change shape in complex, controllable ways and even engulf their surroundings.

The findings, published in Nature Communications, show that some of life’s signature behaviors—like morphing into complex shapes and capturing material—can emerge from physics and chemistry alone, without genes, proteins or active cellular machinery.

One of life’s defining features is morphogenesis—the ability of cells and tissues to reshape themselves, form compartments and engulf material from their surroundings. These remarkable transformations normally rely on a sophisticated molecular toolkit.

Randomly mixed atoms arranged in rows and columns for sustainable catalysis

The energy system of the future will require sustainable catalysts that, for example, enable the efficient production of green hydrogen. Materials consisting of mixtures of five chemical elements show great promise for enabling ideal catalysts in the future.

Predicted Noncrystalline Structures Have Bonus Properties

Simulations reveal disordered structures that are also surprisingly resistant to impacts and cracks.

Metamaterials derive their unique properties from their tailored, macroscale structures, not from their chemical compositions or atomic-scale structures. Although designers often rely on regular, repeating architectures, many of nature’s toughest materials—from bone to spider silk—owe their resilience to structural disorder. Now, inspired by those biological examples, researchers have used machine learning to find new designs for disordered metamaterials [1]. These structures not only have the properties for which they were optimized, but they also resist deformation and fracture. The researchers have built a prototype car bumper based on their designs, and they propose uses in ballistic shields, helmets, and other protective equipment.

The design of functional metamaterials has conventionally focused on ordered structures, where the repeating nature of the patterns allows predictions of macroscopic behavior. Amorphous structures lack that periodicity, leaving an enormous number of possible disordered arrangements that are difficult to explore systematically. Yet disorder can also be an asset, enabling mechanical behaviors that are otherwise difficult or impossible to achieve. The main challenge has been to search the large number of potential structures efficiently enough to identify the rare ones that combine useful functionality with physical stability.

Magnetic nanoparticles remove forever chemicals from water

PFAS, otherwise known as forever chemicals, have become commonplace in numerous everyday and industrial products. At the same time, they are some of the most problematic pollutants of our times: They are extremely durable, accumulate in the environment and in organisms and can only be removed from water with difficulty.

A team of researchers from FAU, Uniklinikum Erlangen and the Bavarian Health and Food Safety Authority led by Prof. Dr. Marcus Halik from the Chair of Polymer Materials at FAU have developed a procedure to efficiently remove a wide range of different PFAS from water using functionalized magnetic nanoparticles. They have published their findings in the journal Materials Today.

Johannes Voß and Linda Rockmann from Halik’s team developed functionalized iron oxide nanoparticles with unique magnetic properties, whose surface was specifically adapted to bind to various PFAS. Once they are attached to the iron oxide, i.e. rust particles, the PFAS can simply be removed from the water using a magnet.

Ion pumping platform simultaneously cleans salty wastewater and recovers valuable metals

Industrial wastewater from electronics manufacturing, metal processing and other sectors often contains two difficult pollutants at once: high levels of salt and toxic heavy metals. Current treatment methods typically address those problems separately, creating costly, complex systems that can produce hazardous brines or metal-laden sludge. Now, a group of researchers at Rice University and Vanderbilt University has created an electrochemical platform that could do both jobs at once.

A team led by Shihong Lin, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rice, has shown that electrochemical ion pumping (EIP) can be programmed to desalinate wastewater while selectively recovering dissolved metals such as copper.

The approach, published in Nature Water, could offer a new path toward water reuse and resource recovery from industrial brines. Longqian Xu, a postdoctoral researcher at Rice, is the study’s first author.

Chemists unlock Appel fluorination with potassium fluoride

Alcohols are among the most abundant building blocks in chemistry. Fluorinated compounds, meanwhile, are essential for many modern medicines, crop protection products and advanced materials. Converting one into the other, however, has traditionally relied on toxic, thermally unstable reagents such as DAST (diethylaminosulfur trifluoride) that make large-scale manufacturing operationally demanding.

Researchers are therefore seeking safer and more practical ways to carry out these fluorination reactions. One major goal is to use simple, inexpensive and widely available fluoride sources such as potassium fluoride in order to make the process safer, more scalable and more sustainable.

Photonic time crystals unlock ultrafast control of light in the terahertz range

An international team of researchers from École Polytechnique, Collège de France and Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) has achieved a world first: the experimental realization of an all-optical photonic time crystal (PTC), a material whose optical properties can be strongly and periodically modulated over ultrafast timescales.

Published in Nature, this breakthrough uses HZDR’s TELBE superradiant terahertz source to drive the system into a new regime of light-matter interaction in the terahertz range. This discovery paves the way for ultrafast optical computing, new telecommunications systems and eventually new types of terahertz lasers.

Shaping the properties of light as it interacts with materials is the foundation of many discoveries and technological advances, including optical fibers for telecommunications, lasers as light sources and sensors for chemistry and biology.

Spectroscopy system detects aerosols using light reflected from traffic signs and tree trunks

Researchers have developed and tested an infrared spectroscopy system that can rapidly detect chemical aerosols from a distance by using light reflected from common surfaces such as traffic signs, tree trunks or painted surfaces. The new method could make it possible to detect hazards without complicated instruments, helping improve safety and ease operations at industrial sites, public venues and other high-risk locations.

“Previously, many remote chemical detection systems have relied on placing a mirror or other highly reflective target in the field to bounce the laser signal back to the detector, which isn’t practical in many real-world situations,” said research team leader Tim Johnson from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. “Our approach eliminates that requirement by using reflections from ordinary surfaces, allowing us to detect aerosolized chemicals from a distance without installing specialized equipment at the target location.”

In the journal Applied Optics, the researchers report results from laboratory tests using reflected infrared laser light from different surfaces. They showed that many nonmetallic surfaces could be used for aerosol and vapor detection at standoff distances of up to 11 meters (36 feet).