http://www.physorg.com/chemistry-news/materials-science/ en-us PhysOrg.com provides the latest news on chemistry and materials science (PhysOrg.com) -- Some of the most common minerals in biology, including those in bones and shells, have a mysterious structure: Their crystals are positioned in the same orientation, making them behave as one giant crystal, even though they do not look like a faceted crystal. http://www.physorg.com/news180631288.html Chemistry - Materials Science Mon, 21 Dec 2009 15:25:15 EST news180631288 Frederic Scheer is biding his time, convinced that by 2013 the price of oil will be so high that his bio-plastics, made from vegetables and plants, will be highly marketable. http://www.physorg.com/news180594717.html Chemistry - Materials Science Mon, 21 Dec 2009 05:17:07 EST news180594717 (PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists at Cornell University in the U.S. have found a new way of breaking two of the strongest chemical bonds, at ambient temperature and pressure, and this breakthrough could lead to low-energy processes for making organic compounds containing nitrogen. http://www.physorg.com/news180170164.html Chemistry - Materials Science Wed, 16 Dec 2009 07:22:43 EST news180170164 (PhysOrg.com) -- In a study that elevates the role of entropy in creating order, research led by the University of Michigan shows that certain pyramid shapes can spontaneously organize into complex quasicrystals. http://www.physorg.com/news179588725.html Chemistry - Materials Science Wed, 09 Dec 2009 14:30:10 EST news179588725 (PhysOrg.com) -- Hydrogen is a promising alternative energy carrier that can be efficiently converted into electrical energy in fuel cells. One hurdle to the introduction of sustainable hydrogen technology is the fact that the large-scale industrial production of hydrogen through reforming processes is still largely based on fossil fuels, and thus is not carbon neutral. http://www.physorg.com/news178969673.html Chemistry - Materials Science Wed, 02 Dec 2009 10:30:01 EST news178969673 In a world first, a Monash University-led international research team has developed an innovative way to boost the output of the next generation of solar cells. http://www.physorg.com/news178889850.html Chemistry - Materials Science Tue, 01 Dec 2009 11:38:01 EST news178889850 (PhysOrg.com) -- Lara Estroff and colleagues have taken a deep, detailed look at the way lab-created calcite crystals, similar to those found in nature, grow in tandem with proteins and other large molecules. http://www.physorg.com/news178823885.html Chemistry - Materials Science Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:19:17 EST news178823885 (PhysOrg.com) -- The scientists anticipate their "LithoParticles" will have significant applications in photonics, optical communications and other areas. http://www.physorg.com/news178358457.html Chemistry - Materials Science Wed, 25 Nov 2009 08:40:01 EST news178358457 Scientists at the Carnegie Institution have found for the first time that high pressure can be used to make a unique hydrogen-storage material. The discovery paves the way for an entirely new way to approach the hydrogen-storage problem. The researchers found that the normally unreactive, noble gas xenon combines with molecular hydrogen (H2) under pressure to form a previously unknown solid with unusual bonding chemistry. The experiments are the first time these elements have been combined to form a stable compound. The discovery debuts a new family of materials, which could boost new hydrogen technologies. http://www.physorg.com/news178119983.html Chemistry - Materials Science Sun, 22 Nov 2009 13:47:08 EST news178119983 (PhysOrg.com) -- Every year, more than 250 billion pounds of plastic are produced worldwide. Much of it ends up in the world's oceans, a fact that troubles MIT biology professor Anthony Sinskey. http://www.physorg.com/news177696802.html Chemistry - Materials Science Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:00:01 EST news177696802 A new study indicates that major chemicals most often cited as leading causes of climate change, such as carbon dioxide and methane, are outclassed in their warming potential by compounds receiving less attention. http://www.physorg.com/news177679355.html Chemistry - Materials Science Tue, 17 Nov 2009 11:23:18 EST news177679355 Small amounts of oil leave a fluorescent sheen on polluted water. Oil sheen is hard to remove, even when the water is aerated with ozone or filtered through sand. Now, a University of Utah engineer has developed an inexpensive new method to remove oil sheen by repeatedly pressurizing and depressurizing ozone gas, creating microscopic bubbles that attack the oil so it can be removed by sand filters. http://www.physorg.com/news177572736.html Chemistry - Materials Science Mon, 16 Nov 2009 05:46:54 EST news177572736 New scientific discoveries are moving society toward the era of "personalized solar energy," in which the focus of electricity production shifts from huge central generating stations to individuals in their own homes and communities. http://www.physorg.com/news176557158.html Chemistry - Materials Science Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:39:46 EST news176557158 (PhysOrg.com) -- Porphyrins are most commonly thought of as the pigment in red blood cells, but now scientists have found that porphyrins can also be used to increase the efficiency of an inexpensive type of solar cell. In a recent study, researchers have found that a variety of porphyrin arrays can improve the solar-to-electrical energy conversion efficiency of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs), and could potentially be used to construct larger 3-D light harvesting arrays. http://www.physorg.com/news176112834.html Chemistry - Materials Science Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:50:01 EST news176112834 (PhysOrg.com) -- Preventing the havoc wrought when freezing rain collects on roads, power lines, and aircrafts could be only a few nanometers away. A University of Pittsburgh-led team demonstrates in the Nov. 3 edition of Langmuir a nanoparticle-based coating developed in the lab of Di Gao, a chemical and petroleum engineering professor in Pitt's Swanson School of Engineering, that thwarts the buildup of ice on solid surfaces and can be easily applied. http://www.physorg.com/news176044143.html Chemistry - Materials Science Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:09:54 EST news176044143 (PhysOrg.com) -- Recently, a trio from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Louisiana Tech University showed that strontium ions congregate on water's surface. Their computer simulation and careful calculations finally demonstrated why experiments and conventional wisdom clashed about the behavior of this type of ion, a divalent cation or one with two electrons missing. http://www.physorg.com/news175891519.html Chemistry - Materials Science Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:46:35 EST news175891519 Scientists questing after a long-sought new medical adhesive describe copying the natural glue secreted by a tiny sea creature called the sandcastle worm in the latest episode in the American Chemical Society's podcast series, "Global Challenges/Chemistry Solutions." http://www.physorg.com/news175873111.html Chemistry - Materials Science Tue, 27 Oct 2009 14:39:42 EST news175873111 (PhysOrg.com) -- Despite ongoing efforts to save the trees, many offices print high volumes of paper documents on a daily basis. Although many companies encourage paper recycling, both disposing of and recycling paper have negative environmental impacts. What if there was a way to reuse printed paper by removing the ink and quickly transforming it back into clean, white paper? http://www.physorg.com/news175847766.html Chemistry - Materials Science Tue, 27 Oct 2009 09:40:01 EST news175847766 (PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers at the University of Washington and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have taken an important step in converting methane gas to a liquid, potentially making it more useful as a fuel and as a source for making other chemicals. http://www.physorg.com/news175440723.html Chemistry - Materials Science Thu, 22 Oct 2009 14:32:49 EST news175440723 Researchers at the University of California, Riverside have created in the laboratory a class of carbenes, highly reactive molecules, used to make catalysts - substances that facilitate chemical reactions. Until now, chemists believed these carbenes, called "abnormal N-heterocyclic carbenes" or aNHCs, were impossible to make. http://www.physorg.com/news175440301.html Chemistry - Materials Science Thu, 22 Oct 2009 14:25:41 EST news175440301 (PhysOrg.com) -- A small molecule designed to detect cyanide in water samples works quickly, is easy to use, and glows under ultraviolet or "black" light. Although the fluorescent molecule is not yet ready for market, its Indiana University Bloomington creators report in the Journal of the American Chemical Society that the tool is already able to sense cyanide below the toxicity threshold established by the World Health Organization. http://www.physorg.com/news175359189.html Chemistry - Materials Science Wed, 21 Oct 2009 15:54:34 EST news175359189 (PhysOrg.com) -- Trying to understand the complex workings of a biological cell by teasing out the function of every molecule within it is a daunting task. But by making synthetic cells that include just a few chemical processes, researchers can study cellular machinery one manageable piece at a time. http://www.physorg.com/news175281566.html Chemistry - Materials Science Tue, 20 Oct 2009 18:22:07 EST news175281566 (PhysOrg.com) -- One of the biggest hindrances to the development of fuel cell technology is its cost. In order to work properly, polymer electrolyte fuel cells require a catalyst. So far, though, the most efficient catalyst for use with these fuel cells is platinum. And, as you probably know, platinum is one of the most expensive materials out there. The high cost of platinum is stunting the further development of fuel cells for use on a broader basis. Help may be coming, however, in the form of niobium and titanium. http://www.physorg.com/news175269673.html Chemistry - Materials Science Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:02:21 EST news175269673 Applying a small mechanical force to embryonic stem cells could be a new way of coaxing them into a specific direction of differentiation, researchers at the University of Illinois report. Applications for force-directed cell differentiation include therapeutic cloning and regenerative medicine. http://www.physorg.com/news175093297.html Chemistry - Materials Science Sun, 18 Oct 2009 14:02:07 EST news175093297 Fuel cells are often touted as one method to help decrease society's addiction to fossil fuels. But there is still a lot of work to be done before fuel cells will be ready for mass market to be used in transportation, home heating and portable power for emergencies. http://www.physorg.com/news175092210.html Chemistry - Materials Science Sun, 18 Oct 2009 13:44:45 EST news175092210 Producing metallic hollow spheres is complicated: It has not yet been possible to make the small sizes required for new high-tech applications. Now for the first time researchers have manufactured ground hollow spheres measuring just two to ten millimeters. http://www.physorg.com/news174647075.html Chemistry - Materials Science Tue, 13 Oct 2009 10:09:39 EST news174647075 A new technique in Magnetic Resonance Imaging dubbed "Hyper-SAGE" has the potential to detect ultra low concentrations of clincal targets, such as lung and other cancers. Development of Hyper-SAGE was led by one of the world's foremost authorities on MRI technology, Alexander Pines, a chemist who holds joint appointments with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California, Berkeley. The key to this technique is xenon gas that has been zapped with laser light to "hyperpolarize" the spins of its atomic nuclei so that most are pointing in the same direction. http://www.physorg.com/news174319165.html Chemistry - Materials Science Fri, 09 Oct 2009 15:00:36 EST news174319165 University of Florida chemists have pioneered a method to tease out promising molecular structures for capturing energy, a step that could speed the development of more efficient, cheaper solar cells. http://www.physorg.com/news174231204.html Chemistry - Materials Science Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:34:02 EST news174231204 (PhysOrg.com) -- New work by chemists at UC Davis shows that ethylene, a gas that is important both as a hormone that controls fruit ripening and as a raw material in industrial chemistry, can bind reversibly to tin atoms. The research, published Sept. 25 in the journal Science, could have implications for understanding catalytic processes. http://www.physorg.com/news173464165.html Chemistry - Materials Science Tue, 29 Sep 2009 17:29:46 EST news173464165 Scientists at The University of Nottingham have overcome one of the significant research challenges facing electrochemists. For the first time they have found a way of probing right into the heart of an electrochemical reaction. http://www.physorg.com/news173363726.html Chemistry - Materials Science Mon, 28 Sep 2009 13:50:01 EST news173363726