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Category: chemistry – Page 61

CU Boulder scientists have found how ions move in tiny pores, potentially improving energy storage in devices like supercapacitors. Their research updates Kirchhoff’s law, with significant implications for energy storage in vehicles and power grids.

Imagine if your dead laptop or phone could be charged in a minute, or if an electric car could be fully powered in just 10 minutes. While this isn’t possible yet, new research by a team of scientists at CU Boulder could potentially make these advances a reality.

Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers in Ankur Gupta’s lab discovered how tiny charged particles, called 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.

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Even if we can dodge a disaster in orbit by responsibly de-orbiting derelict satellites, many scientists are concerned that the number of objects circling our planet could still do harm: When they deorbit, they could deposit a significant flux of metals that could alter the chemical makeup of Earth’s atmosphere.

“Effects on astronomy are just the tip of the iceberg,” said Barentine, who says we may be fast approaching a turning point where tragedy becomes imminent, either in space due to a collision or on the ground from falling debris. “Space policy-making moves far too slowly to effectively deal with all of this.”

“Right now, there’s not a lot to look forward to that is positive,” he added. “If the New Space Age goes badly in the end, history will not look favorably on it.”

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Lithium (Li) secondary batteries, commonly used in electric vehicles, store energy by converting electrical energy to chemical energy and generating electricity to release chemical energy to electrical energy through the movement of Li-ions between a cathode and an anode. These secondary batteries mainly use nickel (Ni) cathode materials due to their high lithium-ion storage capacity. Traditional nickel-based materials have a polycrystalline morphology composed of many tiny crystals which can undergo structural degradation during charging and discharging, significantly reducing their lifespan.

One approach to addressing this issue is to produce the cathode material in a “single-crystal” form. Creating nickel-based cathode materials as single large particles, or “single crystals,” can enhance their structural and chemical stability and durability. It is known that single-crystal materials are synthesized at high temperatures and become rigid. However, the exact process of hardening during synthesis and the specific conditions under which this occurs remain unclear.

To improve the durability of nickel cathode materials for electric vehicles, the researchers focused on identifying a specific temperature, referred to as the “critical temperature,” at which high-quality single-crystal materials are synthesized. They investigated various synthesis temperatures to determine the optimal conditions for forming single crystals in synthesis of a nickel-based cathode material (N884). The team systematically observed the impact of temperature on the material’s capacity and long-term performance.

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Dartmouth researchers have developed a self-powered pump that uses natural light and chemistry to target and remove specific water pollutants, according to a new report in the journal Science (“A molecular anion pump”).

As water enters the pump, a wavelength of light activates a synthetic molecular receptor designed to bond to negatively charged ions, or anions, a class of pollutants linked to metabolic disruptions in plants and animals. A second wavelength deactivates the receptors as water exits the pump and causes them to release the pollutants, trapping them in a non-reactive substrate until they can be safely discarded.

“This is a proof of concept that you can use a synthetic receptor to convert light energy into chemical potential for removing a contaminant from a waste source,” says the study’s senior author, Ivan Aprahamian, professor and chair of the Department of Chemistry at Dartmouth.

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The effective integration of extremely thin insulating layers with two-dimensional (2D) semiconductors could enable the fabrication of 2D transistors with an electrical capacitance comparable to SiO2 with thicknesses below 1-nm. These transistors could, in turn, help to boost the performance and reduce the power consumption of electronic devices.

Researchers at Nankai University in China recently introduced a new strategy to synthesize single-crystalline metal nanosheets that could be easily transferred onto 2D substrates. This strategy, outlined in a paper in Nature Electronics, was successfully used to deposit 2-nm-thick dielectrics based on Al2O3 or HfO2 for highly performing top-gated transistors.

“At the very beginning, we aimed to developing the (CVD) synthetic strategy of 2D Cu2O, which is a p-type high-mobility 2D semiconductor,” Jinxiong Wu, corresponding author of the paper, told Tech Xplore.

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NRL scientists have discovered new semiconductor nanocrystals with bright ground-state excitons, potentially revolutionizing light-emitting devices and resolving the dark-exciton problem.

Scientists at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) have confirmed the identification of a new class of semiconductor nanocrystals with bright ground-state excitons. This significant advancement in optoelectronics was recently published in the American Chemical Society (ACS) journal, ACS Nano.

The groundbreaking theoretical research could revolutionize the development of highly efficient light-emitting devices and other technologies.

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Mathematics application to a new understanding thd world and life and information.

Dr. David Spivak introduces himself as a keynote speaker at the 17th Annual Artificial General Intelligence Conference in Seattle and shares his lifelong passion for math. He discusses his journey from feeling insecure about the world as a child, to grounding his understanding in mathematics.

Dr. Spivak is the Secretary of the Board at the Topos Institute and on the Topos staff as Senior Scientist and Institute Fellow, following an appointment as founding Chief Scientist. Since his PhD from UC Berkeley in 2007, he has worked to bring category-theoretic ideas into science, technology, and society, through novel mathematical research and collaboration with scientists from disciplines including Materials Science, Chemistry, Robotics, Aeronautics, and Computing. His mission at Topos is to help develop the ability for people, organizations, and societies to see more clearly—and hence to serve—the systems that sustain them.

For more information and registration, please visit the Conference website: https://agi-conf.org/2024/

#AGI #AGI24 #AI #Mathematics.

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