Nov 26, 2024 (Nanowerk News) Thermoelectric materials, which convert heat into electricity, are valuable tools for capturing waste heat and turning it into usable electricity. These materials are especially useful in industries and vehicles where engines produce a lot of waste heat, improving energy efficiency by converting it into additional...
How catalysts secretly lose their stability
Nov 26, 2024 (Nanowerk News) Covalent organic frameworks (COFs) are less stable as catalysts than previously thought but remain highly active. COFs are promising designer catalysts, for example for the sustainable production of chemicals and fuels. Their properties can be adjusted very specifically to catalyze a desired reaction based on...
A breakthrough in clean hydrogen production
Nov 26, 2024 (Nanowerk News) Water splitting - breaking water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen - is a promising pathway to sustainable energy. However, this process has long been challenged by slow chemical kinetics of the oxygen evolution reaction that make hydrogen production inefficient and costly. A groundbreaking international research...
Metal-organic glass enables safer, scalable, and highly sensitive X-ray detection
Nov 26, 2024 (Nanowerk Spotlight) Medical imaging faces a persistent challenge: creating X-ray detectors that combine high sensitivity with practical usability. Current technology forces an uncomfortable trade-off between performance and practicality. Hospital X-ray machines typically use either scintillators that inefficiently convert X-rays to visible light before detection, or direct detectors...
Researchers develop light-guided siRNA delivery system based on cyanobacteria
Nov 26, 2024 (Nanowerk News) In a study published in Cell Reports Physical Science ("Cyanobacteria-intelligent biohybrid system enables light-guided tumor-associated macrophage-specific siRNA delivery"), a research team led by Prof. CAI Lintao from the Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology (SIAT) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences reported its development of an...
new plastic is recyclable and fully ocean-degradable
Nov 26, 2024 (Nanowerk News) Researchers led by Takuzo Aida at the RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science (CEMS) have developed a durable plastic that won’t contribute to microplastic pollution in our oceans. The new material is as strong as conventional plastics and biodegradable, but what makes it special is...
3D-printing breakthrough mitigates three defects simultaneously for failure-free metal parts
Nov 25, 2024 (Nanowerk News) University of Wisconsin-Madison engineers have found a way to simultaneously mitigate three types of defects in parts produced using a prominent additive manufacturing technique called laser powder bed fusion. Led by Lianyi Chen, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at UW-Madison, the team discovered the...
Earth-bound asteroids could be tracked more precisely with new equation
Nov 25, 2024 (Nanowerk News) Identifying asteroids on a potential collision course with Earth could be made easier thanks to an advancement in how to track their orbits more precisely. Taking into account a phenomenon first identified by Sir Isaac Newton and later confirmed by Albert Einstein, researchers have come...
Using matter waves, scientists unveil novel collective behaviors in quantum optics
Nov 25, 2024 (Nanowerk News) A research team led by Dominik Schneble, PhD, Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, has uncovered a novel regime, or set of conditions within a system, for cooperative radiative phenomena, casting new light on a 70-year-old problem in quantum optics. Their findings on...
The first-ever 2D spintronics device constructed entirely from proximitized structures
Nov 25, 2024 (Nanowerk News) Researchers from CIC nanoGUNE, in collaboration with international partners, have achieved the first seamless 2D spintronics device made entirely from proximitized structures. They report a two-dimensional graphene spin valve that is enabled by proximity to the van der Waals magnet Cr2Ge2Te6. Published in Nature Electronics...