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Category: chemistry – Page 8

Controlled ‘oxidative spark’ may serve as a surprising ally in brain repair

Oxidative stress is a direct consequence of an excess in the body of so-called free radicals—reactive, unstable molecules that contain oxygen. Free radicals are normal metabolic by-products and also help to relay signals in the body. In turn, oxidative stress (an overload of these molecules) can be caused by lifestyle, environmental, and biological factors such as smoking, high alcohol consumption, poor diet, stress, pollution, radiation, industrial chemicals, and chronic inflammation.

When this occurs, it creates an imbalance between the production of free radicals and the body’s antioxidant defenses, which are responsible for neutralizing them.

Scientists harness nature’s chirality bias to design series of complex mechanically interlocked molecules

In nature, molecules often show a strong preference for partnering with other molecules that share the same chirality or handedness. A behavior that is quite evident in the phenomenon known as homochirality-driven entanglement, where molecules that are all left-handed or all right-handed preferentially recognize and wrap around one another, forming complex and interlocked structures.

We have known about this natural behavior for quite some time, but its potential in a laboratory setting remained largely untapped—until now. By putting this principle to work, researchers cracked a new technique that tackles a long-standing challenge in molecular synthesis.

A team from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China, and the University of Bristol, UK, leveraged stereochemical information inherent in amino acids to guide the synthesis of a library of chiral Solomon links —a class of complex, mechanically interlocked molecules (MIMs) with doubly interlocked structures.

A Simple Chemical Tweak Unlocks One of Quantum Computing’s Holy Grails

Even supercomputers can stall out on problems where nature refuses to play by everyday rules. Predicting how complex molecules behave or testing the strength of modern encryption can demand calculations that grow too quickly for classical hardware to keep up. Quantum computers are designed to tackle that kind of complexity, but only if engineers can build systems that run with extremely low error rates.

One of the most promising routes to that reliability involves a rare class of materials called topological superconductors. In plain terms, these are superconductors that also have built-in “protected” quantum behavior, which researchers hope could help shield delicate quantum information from noise. The catch is that making materials with these properties is famously difficult.

Why only a small number of planets are suitable for life

For life to develop on a planet, certain chemical elements are needed in sufficient quantities. Phosphorus and nitrogen are essential. Phosphorus is vital for the formation of DNA and RNA, which store and transmit genetic information, and for the energy balance of cells. Nitrogen is an essential component of proteins, which are needed for the formation, structure, and function of cells. Without these two elements, no life can develop out of lifeless matter.

A study led by Craig Walton, postdoc at the Center for Origin and Prevalence of Life at ETH Zurich, and ETH professor Maria Schönbächler has now shown that there must be sufficient phosphorus and nitrogen present when a planet’s core is formed. The study is published in Nature Astronomy.

“During the formation of a planet’s core, there needs to be exactly the right amount of oxygen present so that phosphorus and nitrogen can remain on the surface of the planet,” explains Walton, lead author of the study. This was exactly the case with Earth around 4.6 billion years ago—a stroke of chemical good fortune in the universe. This finding may affect how scientists search for life elsewhere in the universe.

Novel electronic structures and magnetic properties in twisted two-dimensional graphene/Janus 2H–VSeTe heterostructures

In the experiments, the stacking of other layers can be stacked layer by layer by using the method of direct growth, such as chemical bath deposition [17] and chemical vapor deposition [18]. To date, many vertical stacking structures based on graphene have been explored, such as graphene/Janus 2H-VSeTe [19], graphene/Janus 2H-VSeX (X = S, Te) [20], graphene/WTe2, etc. Scientists have done a lot of research on heterostructures, from the aspects of spin-orbital coupling [21], strains, applied electric field and Lattice mismatch, etc.

Show abstract.

Humidity-resistant hydrogen sensor can improve safety in large-scale clean energy

Wherever hydrogen is present, safety sensors are required to detect leaks and prevent the formation of flammable oxyhydrogen gas when hydrogen is mixed with air. It is therefore a challenge that today’s sensors do not work optimally in humid environments—because where there is hydrogen, there is very often humidity. Now, researchers at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, are presenting a new sensor that is well suited to humid environments—and actually performs better the more humid it gets.

“The performance of a hydrogen gas sensor can vary dramatically from environment to environment, and humidity is an important factor. An issue today is that many sensors become slower or perform less effectively in humid environments. When we tested our new sensor concept, we discovered that the more we increased the humidity, the stronger the response to hydrogen became. It took us a while to really understand how this could be possible,” says Chalmers doctoral student Athanasios Theodoridis, who is the lead author of the article published in the journal ACS Sensors.

Hydrogen is an increasingly important energy carrier in the transport sector and is used as a raw material in the chemical industry or for green steel manufacturing. In addition to water being constantly present in ambient air, it is also formed when hydrogen reacts with oxygen to generate energy, for example, in a fuel cell that can be used in hydrogen-powered vehicles and ships. Furthermore, fuel cells themselves require water to prevent the membranes that separate oxygen and hydrogen inside them from drying out.

Water molecules actively reshape chiral catalyst structure, research shows

Researchers have analyzed the stepwise hydration of prolinol, a molecule widely used as a catalyst and as a building block in chemical synthesis. The study shows that just a few water molecules can completely change the preferred structure of prolinol. The research is published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Physical chemistry applies the principles and concepts of physics to understand the basics of chemistry and explain how and why transformations of matter take place on a molecular level. One of the branches of this field focuses on understanding how molecules change in the course of a chemical reaction or process.

Understanding the interactions of chiral molecules with water is crucial, given the central role that water plays in chemical and biological processes. Chiral molecules are those that, despite comprising the same atoms, cannot be superimposed on their mirror image in a way similar to what happens with right and left hands or a pair of shoes.

Dyson Strawberry Farming: 5,127 Prototypes to 250% Yields

When James Dyson built his 5,127th prototype of a bagless vacuum cleaner, he had no idea that the same relentless engineering philosophy would one day transform him into Britain’s largest farmer. Today, Dyson strawberry farming represents one of the most ambitious applications of high-tech innovation to agriculture ever attempted in the United Kingdom.

The numbers tell an extraordinary story. After spending five years and creating over five thousand prototypes to perfect a single vacuum cleaner design, Dyson has now invested £140 million into a farming operation spanning 36,000 acres across five English counties. At the heart of this agricultural empire sits a 26-acre glasshouse in Lincolnshire, home to 1.25 million strawberry plants and technology that has increased yields by 250% compared to traditional farming methods.

This isn’t farming as your grandparents would recognize it. Inside Dyson’s facility, massive 5.5-meter “ferris wheel” structures rotate strawberry plants through optimal sunlight positions. Sixteen robotic arms delicately harvest ripe fruit using computer vision. UV-emitting robots patrol the aisles at night, destroying mould without chemicals. And all of it runs on renewable energy generated from an adjacent anaerobic digester.

Encapsulated PbS quantum dots boost solar water splitting without sacrificial agents

A research team affiliated with UNIST has developed stable and efficient chalcogenide-based photoelectrodes, addressing a longstanding challenge of corrosion. This advancement paves the way for the commercial viability of solar-driven water splitting technology—producing hydrogen directly from sunlight without electrical input.

Jointly led by Professors Ji-Wook Jang and Sung-Yeon Jang from the School of Energy and Chemical Engineering, the team reported a highly durable, corrosion-resistant metal-encapsulated PbS quantum dot (PbS-QD) solar cell-based photoelectrode that delivers both high photocurrent and long-term operational stability for photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting without the need for sacrificial agents. The research is published in the journal Nature Communications.

PEC water splitting is a promising route for sustainable hydrogen production, where sunlight is used to drive the decomposition of water into hydrogen and oxygen within an electrolyte solution. The efficiency of this process depends heavily on the stability of the semiconductor material in the photoelectrode, which absorbs sunlight and facilitates the electrochemical reactions. Although chalcogenide-based sulfides, like PbS are highly valued for their excellent light absorption and charge transport properties, they are prone to oxidation and degradation when submerged in water, limiting their operational stability.

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