How gas bubbles influence hydrogen production

New findings are relevant for all electrolysis processes

28-May-2025 - Electrolysers are a key technology for the energy transition. They split water into hydrogen and oxygen, but still consume too much electricity in the process. One challenge is that the initially dissolved hydrogen separates in the form of gas bubbles, which can seal off the electrode - at the ...

New study on the global race for future battery technologies

Europe and the United States risk falling behind

28-May-2025 - Next-generation battery technologies play an important role in the energy and mobility transition. A research team from the Universities of Münster and Cambridge and the Fraunhofer Research Institution for Battery Cell Production (Fraunhofer FFB) has analysed global competition in this field by ...

New atom-swapping method applied to complex organic structures

Chemists have successfully substituted carbon atoms with nitrogen atoms in pharmaceutical components: New possibilities for drug design

27-May-2025 - Skeletal editing is a modern approach to chemical synthesis. By making precise alterations at the atomic level, researchers are able to directly convert existing drug scaffolds into new, biologically relevant compounds. A team led by chemist Prof Armido Studer from the University of Münster has ...

Luminous Magnets: Quasiparticles Discovered on the Surface of Semiconductor Magnets

27-May-2025 - Alexey Chernikov and his team specialize in detecting optical quasiparticles using ultrafast microscopy. Together with international colleagues, they recently visualized a completely new quantum phenomenon: luminous quasiparticles – known as excitons – appearing on the surface of a semiconductor ...

Picometric spectroscopy of hydrogen molecules in atomic nanocavities

Scientists have observed hydrogen and deuterium molecules in so-called picocavities using advanced spectroscopy

26-May-2025 - An international research team led by Akitoshi Shiotari from the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society (Germany), Mariana Rossi from the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (Germany) and Takashi Kumagai from the Institute for Molecular Science/SOKENDAI (Japan) ...

Combining electrochemical CO2 reduction with industrial processes

Researchers have developed a zero-gap reactor for CO2 electrolysis with a differential pressure of up to 40 bar

26-May-2025 - The carbon cycle can be closed with the help of electrochemical CO2 reduction: Unavoidable emissions from concrete production or waste incineration become CO – and thus the starting point for chemicals or fuels. However, there is a hurdle lurking in the industrial application of this technology: ...

Renewable Materials Conference 2025: Nominees for the Innovation Award Unveiled

23-May-2025 - The Renewable Materials Conference (RMC), organised by the nova-Institute, will present leading solutions and innovations for replacing fossil carbon with biomass, CO₂ utilisation and recycling. The growing success of RMC demonstrates that its unique concept of presenting all solutions for ...

Structure of liquid carbon measured for the first time

Research team completes groundbreaking experiment at the European XFEL

23-May-2025 - With the declared aim of measuring matter under extreme pressure, an international research collaboration headed by the University of Rostock and the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) used the high-performance laser DIPOLE 100-X at the European XFEL for the first time in 2023. With ...

Artificial intelligence in modern chemistry: comparison between humans and machines

"The possibilities of artificial intelligence in Chemistry are attracting increasing interest - so we wanted to find out how good these models really are"

23-May-2025 - A recent study by researchers at Friedrich Schiller University Jena has investigated how powerful modern AI models such as GPT-4 are in Chemistry and how they perform in comparison to human experts. Using a newly developed test method called "ChemBench"", the team led by Dr Kevin M. Jablonka was ...

Personal space chemistry suppressed by perfume and body lotion indoors

New study shows that the human oxidation field generated by people indoors is substantially influenced by personal care products

23-May-2025 - In 2022 a team led by the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry discovered that high levels of OH radicals can be generated indoors, simply due to the presence of people and ozone. This means: People generate their own oxidation field and change the indoor air chemistry around them within their own ...