Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: chemistry – Page 301

Newly developed compound may enable sustainable, cost-effective, large-scale energy storage

To produce a cost-effective redox flow battery, researchers based at the South China University of Technology have synthesized a molecular compound that serves as a low-cost electrolyte, enabling a stable flow battery that retains 99.98% capacity per cycle. They published their approach on August 14 in the Energy Material Advances.

Comprising two tanks of opposing liquid electrolytes, the battery pumps the positive and negative liquids along a membrane separator sandwiched between electrodes, facilitating ion exchanges to produce energy. Significant work has been dedicated to developing the negative electrolyte liquid, while the positive electrolyte liquid has received less attention, according to corresponding author Zhenxing Liang, professor in the Key Laboratory of Fuel Cell Technology of Guangdong Province, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, South China University of Technology.

“Aqueous redox flow batteries can realize the stable electrical output for using unsteady solar and wind energy, and they have been recognized as a promising large-scale energy storage ,” Liang said. “Electroactive organic merit of element abundance, low cost and flexible molecular control over the electrochemical features for both positive and negative electrolytes are regarded as key to developing next-generation redox flow batteries.”

Self-Driving Farm Robot Uses Lasers To Kill 100,000 Weeds An Hour, Saving Land And Farmers From Toxic Herbicides

The nutrient content of our vegetables is down 40% over the last two decades and our soil health is suffering due to increasingly harsh herbicide use, according to Carbon Robotics founder Paul Mikesell. And farmers are increasingly concerned about the long-term health impacts of continually spraying chemicals on their fields.

But not weeding will cost half your crop, killing profitability.

The solution?

Into the Metaverse: Where crypto, gaming and capitalism collide

To understand why Mark Zuckerberg thinks “the metaverse” is the next frontier, consider the case of Sam Peurifoy. The 27-year-old chemistry PhD from Columbia University left his job at Goldman Sachs at the height of the pandemic and is now seeking out his fortune in crypto by playing video games.

He has recruited dozens of people from Mexico to the Philippines to a “Guild” that plays under the command of “Captain” Peurifoy. In exchange, he ponies up the funds needed to enter Axie Infinity, a game where players collect Smooth Love Potion — a digital token that can potentially be converted into real money.

Electrochemical pulse method resolves materials joining in solid-state batteries

Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) have developed a scalable, low-cost electrochemical pulse method to improve the contact between layers of materials in solid-state batteries, resolving one of the big challenges in the commercial development of safe, long-lived energy storage systems. The new technology could pave the way for electric vehicles and smartphones that work much longer with each charge.

One of the challenges in manufacturing solid-state batteries is the difficulty of getting materials to properly join and remain stable during repeated cycles of charging and discharging. This leads to instability in the joints and causes the formation of voids, something known as contact impedance. Applying high pressures is one way to solve this problem, but that process can lead to shorting and would need to be re-applied periodically to extend the battery’s life using an expensive aftermarket application.

ORNL scientists have found that they could eliminate these voids by applying a short, high-voltage electrochemical pulse when joining layers of lithium metal anode material with a solid electrolyte material. These pulses see a current surrounding the lithium metal-encased voids and cause them to dissipate, leading to increased contact at the interface of the materials while resulting in no detrimental effects.

Tiny bubbles: Researchers develop a flexible new system for creating soft robotics

Princeton researchers have invented bubble casting, a new way to make soft robots using “fancy balloons” that change shape in predictable ways when inflated with air.

The new system involves injecting bubbles into a liquid polymer, letting the material solidify and inflating the resulting device to make it bend and move. The researchers used this approach to design and create hands that grip, a fishtail that flaps and slinky-like coils that retrieve a ball. They hope that their simple and versatile method, published Nov. 10 in the journal Nature, will accelerate the development of new types of soft robots.

Traditional rigid robots have multiple uses, such as in manufacturing cars. “But they will not be able to hold your hands and allow you to move somewhere without breaking your wrist,” said Pierre-Thomas Brun, an assistant professor of chemical and and the lead researcher on the study. “They’re not naturally geared to interact with the soft stuff, like humans or tomatoes.”

New Spiking Neuromorphic Chip Could Usher in an Era of Highly Efficient AI

Let’s take a look at a highly abstracted neuron. It’s like a tootsie roll, with a bulbous middle section flanked by two outward-reaching wrappers. One side is the input—an intricate tree that receives signals from a previous neuron. The other is the output, blasting signals to other neurons using bubble-like ships filled with chemicals, which in turn triggers an electrical response on the receiving end.

Here’s the crux: for this entire sequence to occur, the neuron has to “spike.” If, and only if, the neuron receives a high enough level of input—a nicely built-in noise reduction mechanism—the bulbous part will generate a spike that travels down the output channels to alert the next neuron.

But neurons don’t just use one spike to convey information. Rather, they spike in a time sequence. Think of it like Morse Code: the timing of when an electrical burst occurs carries a wealth of data. It’s the basis for neurons wiring up into circuits and hierarchies, allowing highly energy-efficient processing.

Non-toxic technology extracts more gold from ore

Gold is one of the world’s most popular metals. Malleable, conductive and non-corrosive, it’s used in jewelry, electronics, and even space exploration. But traditional gold production typically involves a famous toxin, cyanide, which has been banned for industrial use in several countries.

The wait for a scalable non-toxic alternative may now be over as a research team from Aalto University in Finland has successfully replaced cyanide in a key part of gold extraction from ore. The results are published in Chemical Engineering.

Study shows new chloride-based process recovers 84% of gold compared to the 64% recovered with traditional methods.

Deciphering the Philosophers’ Stone: How Scientists Cracked a 400-Year-Old Alchemical Cipher

At the conference, Science History Institute postdoctoral researcher Megan Piorko presented a curious manuscript belonging to English alchemists John Dee (1527–1608) and his son Arthur Dee (1579–1651). In the pre-modern world, alchemy was a means to understand nature through ancient secret knowledge and chemical experiment.

Within Dee’s alchemical manuscript was a cipher table, followed by encrypted ciphertext under the heading “Hermeticae Philosophiae medulla”—or Marrow of the Hermetic Philosophy. The table would end up being a valuable tool in decrypting the cipher, but could only be interpreted correctly once the hidden “key” was found.

It was during post-conference drinks in a dimly lit bar that Megan decided to investigate the mysterious alchemical cipher—with the help of her colleague, University of Graz postdoctoral researcher Sarah Lang.

Organic molecules revealed on Mars

An international team of space researchers working with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center has found previously unknown organic molecules on Mars using a new experiment aboard the Curiosity rover. The results are published in the journal Nature Astronomy.

To date, NASA has sent nine orbiters and six rovers to Mars, in part to learn more about the possibility of extraterrestrial life. To that end, the planet has been photographed with various types of cameras. More recently, rovers have dug down into the Martian soil to collect samples for analysis. The goal of such work is to learn more about the chemicals in the soil on or near the surface, but more specifically, to see if it contains organic molecules. If so, they could be evidence of life or prior life on the planet. The rovers have found organic molecules, but samples were not sufficient to claim they were produced or used by a living organism. Thus, the search continues. In this new effort, after the Curiosity rover’s drill stopped working in 2,017 the control team chose to conduct a type of experiment that had not been done by the rover before.

Curiosity carries an instrument called the Sample Analysis at Mars, an array of cups that hold samples of soil as they are being analyzed. The array has 74 cups—all but nine of them are empty most of the time. The other nine hold chemicals that are used to conduct other kinds of experiments. Because of the drill malfunction, the team at NASA chose to drop into the cups containing the chemicals and then to analyze the chemicals released due to reactions. The researchers found in the that had never been seen on Mars before. While the new experiment did not find evidence of life, it did show that there are other novel ways to test for it on Mars and other planets.