Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: chemistry – Page 8

Atomic disorder strategy could help high-capacity batteries last longer

Researchers at UNIST, in collaboration with the Pohang Accelerator Laboratory (PAL) and KAIST, have introduced a novel approach to stabilizing high-capacity battery materials. By intentionally inducing atomic-level disorder within lithium-rich layered oxide (LRLO) cathodes, the team has effectively minimized structural degradation and energy losses, paving the way for next-generation batteries with higher energy density and longer lifespan.

The findings of this research have been published online in ACS Energy Letters.

Lithium-rich layered oxides (LRLO) are among the most promising cathode materials for future energy storage solutions due to their exceptional capacity, which involves not only metal ions but also oxygen participating in electrochemical reactions. However, their practical application has been hindered by structural instability during repeated charge and discharge cycles, leading to capacity fade and voltage degradation.

Johns Hopkins awarded $15M to develop platform to study neurological diseases, screen chemicals

The DROID platform will extend current in vitro approaches—test tubes and culture dishes—to modeling learning and memory using brain organoids, addressing a critical gap: Current in vitro assays cannot capture higher-order neural responses, and evaluations of neurotoxicity or drug efficacy still primarily rely on animal behavioral tests.

The researchers will also evaluate brain organoids derived from both healthy individuals and patients with Alzheimer’s disease and individuals with SYNGAP1-related disorders—a rare pediatric condition associated with intellectual disability, seizures, and autism—to test neural responses and sensitivity to pharmacological interventions.

By enabling researchers to assess complex neural responses that currently rely on animal behavioral tests, the DROIDp system aims to improve drug discovery and neurotoxicity testing. Ultimately, the goal of this platform is to provide a more predictive, human-relevant approach for studying neurological diseases and evaluating the safety of drugs and chemicals.

Jupiter’s moons may have formed with the ingredients for life

An international team that included Southwest Research Institute has shown how complex organic molecules (COMs), considered essential chemical precursors to life, may have become part of Jupiter’s four largest moons as they formed. The results appear in companion papers published in The Planetary Science Journal and Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Together, the studies shed new light on how the ingredients for life could have reached the Jovian system.

Mussel-inspired glue from recycled plastics can be detached and reused

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have invented a reusable adhesive from waste polymers that is tougher than commercial glues, works underwater as well as in dry environments, and bonds a variety of materials, including wood, glass, metal, paper and polymers.

Inspired by the way mussels stick stubbornly to surfaces, the innovative adhesive contains reversible chemical crosslinkers that allow the hardened glue to soften, detach and be reused, unlike current glues, which set permanently after one use.

Today’s projects typically require different glues for different material surfaces—white glue for grade-school art projects, polyvinyl acetates for bookbinding, polyurethanes for shoemaking, silicones for sealing windows and affixing electronic parts, and industrial epoxies for joining aircraft and automobile components.

Impressionist sea slugs create their patterns by arranging colorful photonic crystals

Nudibranchs are often referred to as the butterflies of the sea. Nudibranchs live worldwide, primarily in warm, shallow marine regions, and stand out for their flamboyant colors and diverse shapes. A team from the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam and the University of Cambridge has now discovered how they create their colorful patterns. According to their findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the color is produced by nanostructures, each of which creates a specific color impression.

“We were surprised to find that nudibranchs use structural colors,” says Samuel Humphrey, who conducted the research at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces. “Biologists had previously assumed that the colors were produced by pigments.” Pigments are chemical compounds and differently colored pigments have different chemical compositions.

In contrast, in structural colors, color is not a chemical property of the material, but it depends on the length scale of nanostructures composing the material. Such nanostructures, also called photonic crystals, are responsible for the coloration of chameleons, as well as many birds and butterflies. In such structures, color is produced by the regular arrangement of materials with different refractive indices.

Introduction to Quantum Electrodynamics (QED)

It’s now time to dig into quantum field theories with considerably more rigor than earlier in the series. First up is quantum electrodynamics, or QED. This was the first successful QFT, combining quantum mechanics and special relativity. Let’s learn what this model is all about, and how to do math with Feynman diagrams.

Script by andrew mattson, physics phd student at johns hopkins university.

Watch the whole Modern Physics playlist: http://bit.ly/ProfDavePhysics2

Classical Physics Tutorials: http://bit.ly/ProfDavePhysics1
Mathematics Tutorials: http://bit.ly/ProfDaveMaths.
General Chemistry Tutorials: http://bit.ly/ProfDaveGenChem.
Organic Chemistry Tutorials: http://bit.ly/ProfDaveOrgChem.
Biochemistry Tutorials: http://bit.ly/ProfDaveBiochem.
Biology Tutorials: http://bit.ly/ProfDaveBio.

EMAIL► [email protected].
PATREON► / professordaveexplains.

Check out \.

Continue reading “Introduction to Quantum Electrodynamics (QED)” | >

Building a better, more precise droplet

A humble droplet can be an immensely useful tool for a number of fields, from medicine to manufacturing. Controlling the size of the droplet, though, is an important—and very tricky—task. With unprecedented precision, a team of researchers determined how droplets break up into smaller ones, at what size, and under what conditions. The results of this study are published in Soft Matter.

“Droplets can be used as microcontainers that encapsulate small amounts of fluid and other components,” said Prof. Corey O’Hern, who led the study. Because of that, he said, they can be used to deliver drugs to the body, or to find the genomic signatures of a single cell.

“Another cool application involves microreactors. You can put different concentrations of chemical species into the droplet, allow them to mix, and determine how they react.”

Fluorescent dye that works in superacidic conditions expands possibilities for imaging in extreme environments

Since the 1960s, boron–dipyrromethene dyes, commonly called BODIPY dyes, have been widely used for their strong fluorescence, especially in bioimaging, molecular and ion sensing, and as photosensitizers. Researchers especially like how, with simple modifications to BODIPY molecules, their emission color can be tuned—an indispensable quality for multicolor imaging applications.

However, conventional BODIPY dyes are unstable in acidic environments. Strong acids can disrupt their structure by removing the boron atom and causing the dye to lose its fluorescence. This has limited their use in highly acidic conditions.

In a new breakthrough, researchers from Hokkaido University have developed a superacid-resistant BODIPY dye. The research team, led by Professor Yasuhide Inokuma at the Institute for Chemical Reaction Design and Discovery (WPI-ICReDD), reports the findings in Nature Communications.

Milkweed evolves ‘mind-blowing’ tactic to fight monarchs

Milkweed has found a new strategy in its epic evolutionary battle with monarch butterflies: upgrading its toxins to outmaneuver the monarch’s resistance. In a new study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers find that adding a small structural element containing nitrogen and sulfur to milkweed’s toxins circumvents monarchs’ ability to block them. The research sheds light on an underappreciated evolutionary tactic for plants: that not only can they increase their levels of toxicity, they can also structurally innovate to create new classes or subclasses of toxins.

“This structural innovation is a new axis for defining chemical toxins in the natural world,” said co-author Christophe Duplais, associate professor of entomology at Cornell AgriTech, in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS). “This very simple modification makes a huge difference in terms of its ecological effect, because now this molecule is toxic to the monarch.”

Milkweed and monarchs have coevolved over millions of years, each building defenses and counter-defenses. One such defense is the monarchs’ ability to block milkweed’s toxins, called cardenolides, from binding to their target enzyme in the monarch’s cells. Monarchs have even evolved to sequester the toxins in their wings, to poison birds that peck at them.

/* */