Jan 31, 2022 (Nanowerk News) The carbon material graphene has no well-defined thickness, it merely consists of one single layer of atoms. It is therefore often referred to as a "two-dimensional material". Trying to make a three-dimensional structure out of it may sound contradictory at first, but it is an...
What the rise of oxygen on early Earth tells us about life on other planets
Jan 31, 2022 (Nanowerk News) When did the Earth reach oxygen levels sufficient to support animal life? Researchers from McGill University have discovered that a rise in oxygen levels occurred in step with the evolution and expansion of complex, eukaryotic ecosystems. Their findings (PNAS, "Strong evidence for a weakly oxygenated...
Machine learning fine-tunes flash graphene
Jan 31, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Rice University scientists are using machine-learning techniques to streamline the process of synthesizing graphene from waste through flash Joule heating. Machine learning is fine-tuning Rice University’s flash Joule heating method for making graphene from a variety of carbon sources, including waste materials. Illustration by Jacob...
Scientists use ‘sticky’ DNA to build organized structures of gel blocks
Jan 31, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Researchers from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) have used microscopic strands of DNA to guide the assembly of gel blocks that are visible to the naked eye. The hydrogel blocks, which measure up to 2mm in length and contain DNA...
Novel hybrid nanocages for faster catalysis
Jan 31, 2022 (Nanowerk News) A novel hybrid ferritin nanocage with histidine residues shows 1.5 times higher metal ion uptake and improved catalytic efficiency for alcohol production, find researchers from Tokyo Tech in a new study. Their findings suggest that hybrid bio-nanocages could effectively catalyze reactions to yield industrially important...
Carbon nanomaterials for future quantum technologies
Jan 31, 2022 (Nanowerk News) An exceptionally large grant will allow a team of Empa researchers to work on an ambitious project over the next ten years: The Werner Siemens Foundation (WSS) is supporting Empa's CarboQuant project with 15 million Swiss francs. The project aims to lay the foundations for...
New technique paves the way for mass production of perovskite solar cells
Jan 31, 2022 (Nanowerk Spotlight) A collaborative team of scientists led by Professor Michael Grätzel at EPFL’s School of Basic Sciences have demonstrated a technique for producing perovskite photovoltaic materials on an industrial scale, which will reduce the cost and improve the performance of mass-produced perovskite solar cells. The technique...
Molecular machine in nano cage
Jan 31, 2022 (Nanowerk News) In cooperation with an international team at the Institute for Basic Science in South Korea, theoretical chemists Dr. Chandan Das and Professor Lars Schäfer from Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) have constructed a molecular gyroscope that can be controlled remotely by light. They also succeeded in characterising...