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Researchers at the National Graphene Institute have made a groundbreaking discovery that could revolutionise energy harnessing and information computing. Their study, published in Nature (“Control of proton transport and hydrogenation in double-gated graphene”), reveals how electric field effects can selectively accelerate coupled electrochemical processes in graphene.

Electrochemical processes are essential in renewable energy technologies like batteries, fuel cells, and electrolysers. However, their efficiency is often hindered by slow reactions and unwanted side effects. Traditional approaches have focused on new materials, yet significant challenges remain.

The Manchester team, led by Dr Marcelo Lozada-Hidalgo, has taken a novel approach. They have successfully decoupled the inseparable link between charge and electric field within graphene electrodes, enabling unprecedented control over electrochemical processes in this material. The breakthrough challenges previous assumptions and opens new avenues for energy technologies.

A new method in spectromicroscopy significantly improves the study of chemical reactions at the nanoscale, both on surfaces and inside layered materials. Scanning X-ray microscopy (SXM) at MAXYMUS beamline of BESSY II enables the investigation of chemical species adsorbed on the top layer (surface) or intercalated within the MXene electrode (bulk) with high chemical sensitivity. The method was developed by a HZB team led by Dr. Tristan Petit. The scientists demonstrated among others first SXM on MXene flakes, a material used as electrode in lithium-ion batteries.

Since their discovery in 2011, MXenes have gathered significant scientific interest due to their versatile tunable properties and diverse applications, from energy storage to electromagnetic shielding. Researchers have been working to decipher the complex chemistry of MXenes at the nanoscale.

The team of Dr. Tristan Petit now made a significant progress in MXene characterization, as described in their recent publication (Small Methods, “Nanoscale surface and bulk electronic properties of Ti 3 C 2 Tx MXene unraveled by multimodal X-ray spectromicroscopy”). They utilized SXM to investigate the chemical bonding of Ti 3 C 2 Tx MXenes, with Tx denoting the terminations (Tx=O, OH, F, Cl), with high spatial and spectral resolution. The novelty in this work is to combine simultaneously two detection modes, transmission and electron yield, enabling different probing depths.

Imagine if your dead laptop or phone could charge in a minute or if an electric car could be fully powered in 10 minutes. While not possible yet, new research by a team of CU Boulder scientists could potentially lead to such advances.

Published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers in Ankur Gupta’s lab discovered how ions, move within a complex network of minuscule pores. The breakthrough could lead to the development of more efficient energy storage devices, such as supercapacitors, said Gupta, an assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering.

“Given the critical role of energy in the future of the planet, I felt inspired to apply my chemical engineering knowledge to advancing energy storage devices,” Gupta said. “It felt like the topic was somewhat underexplored and, as such, the perfect opportunity.”

Researchers discovered that bismuth atoms embedded in calcium oxide can function as qubits for quantum computers, providing a low-noise, durable, and inexpensive alternative to current materials. This groundbreaking study highlights its potential to transform quantum computing and telecommunications.

Calcium oxide is an inexpensive, chalky chemical compound frequently used in the manufacturing of cement, plaster, paper, and steel. However, the common material may soon have a more high-tech application.

Scientists used theoretical and computational approaches to discover how tiny, lone atoms of bismuth embedded within solid calcium oxide can act as qubits — the building blocks of quantum computers and quantum communication devices. These qubits were described by University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering researchers and their collaborator in Sweden on June 6 in the scientific journal Nature Communications.

Gene expression is inherently dynamic, due to complex regulation and stochastic biochemical events. Here the authors train a deep neural network to predict and dynamically control gene expression in thousands of individual bacteria in real-time which they then apply to control antibiotic resistance and study single-cell survival dynamics.

Predicting how proteins bind to other molecules could revolutionize biochemistry, drug discovery.

Researchers have engineered nanosized cubes that spontaneously form a two-dimensional checkerboard pattern when dropped on the surface of water. The work, published in Nature Communications (“Self-assembly of nanocrystal checkerboard patterns via non-specific interactions”), presents a simple approach to create complex nanostructures through a technique called self-assembly.

“It’s a cool way to get materials to build themselves,” said study co-senior author Andrea Tao, a professor in the Aiiso Yufeng Li Family Department of Chemical and Nano Engineering at the University of California San Diego. “You don’t have to go into a nanofabrication lab and do all these complex and precise manipulations.”

Each nanocube is composed of a silver crystal with a mixture of hydrophobic (oily) and hydrophilic (water-loving) molecules attached to the surface. When a suspension of these nanocubes is introduced to a water surface, they arrange themselves such that they touch at their corner edges. This arrangement creates an alternating pattern of solid cubes and empty spaces, resulting in a checkerboard pattern.

National University of Singapore (NUS) chemists have developed hexavalent photocatalytic covalent organic frameworks (COFs) which mimic natural photosynthesis for the production of hydrogen peroxide (H 2 O₂), an important industrial chemical.

The conventional method of H 2 O₂ production involves using anthraquinone as a catalyst to convert air and hydrogen into H 2 O₂. However, this process requires substantial energy, costly noble metal catalysts, high-pressure hydrogen gas and hazardous solvents. Artificial photosynthesis of H 2 O₂, resembling the natural photosynthesis process with the use of sunlight as an energy source and abundant water and air as feedstocks, presents a sustainable and promising alternative to the conventional anthraquinone process.

However, such an artificial system faces three key challenges: insufficient charge carrier generation and fast charge recombination, which lowers the efficiency; limited number of available catalytic sites, which results in low productivity; and lack of efficient delivery of charges and reactants to the catalytic sites, which causes sluggish reaction kinetics.

For the first time in history, scientists have measured radium’s bonding interactions with oxygen atoms in an organic molecule. Scientists have not measured this bonding before because radium-226 is available only in small amounts and it is highly radioactive (radium is one million times more radioactive than the same mass of uranium), making it challenging to work with.