The secret to longer lasting batteries might be in how soap works

One of the most promising electrolytes for designing longer lasting lithium batteries has complex nanostructures that act like micelle structures do in soaped water

10-Nov-2023 - When it comes to making batteries that last longer, a team of researchers including engineers at Brown University and Idaho National Laboratory believes the key might be in how things get clean — specifically how soap works in this process. Take handwashing, for instance. When someone washes ...

Magnetic surprise revealed in ‘magic-angle’ graphene

Graphene becomes a powerful ferromagnet

11-Jan-2022 - When two sheets of the carbon nanomaterial graphene are stacked together at a particular angle with respect to each other, it gives rise to some fascinating physics. For instance, when this so-called “magic-angle graphene” is cooled to near absolute zero, it suddenly becomes a superconductor, ...

New technique builds super-hard metals from nanoparticles

26-Jan-2021 - Metallurgists have all kinds of ways to make a chunk of metal harder. They can bend it, twist it, run it between two rollers or pound it with a hammer. These methods work by breaking up the metal's grain structure -- the microscopic crystalline domains that form a bulk piece of metal. Smaller ...

New catalyst efficiently turns carbon dioxide into useful fuels and chemicals

By efficiently converting CO2 into complex hydrocarbon products, a new catalyst could potentially aid in large-scale efforts to recycle excess carbon dioxide

17-Aug-2020 - As levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide continue to climb, scientists are looking for new ways of breaking down CO2 molecules to make useful carbon-based fuels, chemicals and other products. Now, a team of Brown University researchers has found a way to fine-tune a copper catalyst to produce ...

New boron-lanthanide nanostructure discovered

A newly discovered nanocluster has a geometry that “has not been observed in chemistry heretofore,” the researchers say

01-Jul-2020 - The discovery of carbon nanostructures like two-dimensional graphene and soccer ball-shaped buckyballs helped to launch a nanotechnology revolution. In recent years, researchers from Brown University and elsewhere have shown that boron, carbon's neighbor on the periodic table, can make ...

Next-generation, high-toughness battery component

By combining a ceramic material with graphene, Brown University engineers have made what they say is the toughest solid electrolyte built to date

24-Jun-2020 - A team of Brown University researchers has found a way to double the toughness of a ceramic material used to make solid-state lithium ion batteries. The strategy, described in the journal Matter, could be useful in bringing solid-state batteries to the mass market. "There's huge interest in ...

Research provides new design principle for water-splitting catalysts

20-Dec-2019 - Scientists have long known that platinum is by far the best catalyst for splitting water molecules to produce hydrogen gas. A new study by Brown University researchers shows why platinum works so well -- and it's not the reason that's been assumed. The research, published in ACS Catalysis, helps ...

Caught in the act: Images capture molecular motions in real time

15-Jul-2019 - Researchers have used ultra-high-speed x-ray pulses to make a high-resolution "movie" of a molecule undergoing structural motions. The research, published in Nature Chemistry, reveals the dynamics of the processes in unprecedented detail -- capturing the excitation of a single electron in the ...

Spaced-out nanotwins make for stronger metals

06-Nov-2018 - Researchers from Brown University and the Institute of Metals Research at the Chinese Academy of Sciences have found a new way to use nanotwins -- tiny linear boundaries in a metal's atomic lattice that have identical crystalline structures on either side -- to make stronger metals. The ...

Brown U. awarded $3.5 million to speed up atomic-scale computer simulations

24-Sep-2018 - With a new grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, a Brown University-led research team will use machine learning to speed up atom-level simulations of chemical reactions and the properties of materials. "Simulations provide insights into materials and chemical processes that we can't readily ...