Two conductors of a chemical reaction

Watching the reaction live

22-Nov-2023 - For the first time, researchers at TU Wien have successfully observed the operating principle of so-called promoters in a catalytic reaction in real-time. These promoters play an important role in technology, but so far there is only limited understanding of how they work. Catalysts are essential ...

Revolutionary breakthrough: bacteria help in the circular economy of rare earths

Recycling Rare Earths with biomass: Previously uninvestigated strains of cyanobacteria can adsorb metals

01-Mar-2023 - Rare Earth metals are essential to countless high-tech applications. Working together with the University of Applied Sciences Kaiserslautern, a research team from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has now succeeded in recycling these valuable metals from aqueous solutions using previously ...

Leading the way in superconductor research: new compounds of lanthanum and hydrogen

Surprising findings refute a hypothesis that has played a central role in research into superconducting materials up to now

24-Nov-2022 - All superconductors known today that are used in research and industry are superconducting only below 150 degrees Kelvin (around minus 120 degrees Celsius). Materials that have this property at higher temperatures are therefore being sought worldwide. Based on theoretical modeling, hydrides have ...

Cage with Caps: Selective confinement of rare-earth-metal hydrates in host molecules

24-Aug-2022 - Rare-earth metals are indispensable for many technical products, from smartphones, laptops, batteries, electromotors, and wind turbines, to catalysts. In the journal Angewandte Chemie, a Japanese team has now introduced a molecular “cage” with “caps” that can be used to selectively “confine” ...

‘Bio-fishing’ for rare earths

How protein fragments can be used for the recycling of electronics waste

17-Oct-2018 - Without important key elements such as copper or rare earth metals, the electronics industry would grind to a halt and electricity would cease to flow. End-of-life products like discarded energy-saving lamps, mobile phones and computers could provide an important secondary source for these ...

Making new layered superconductors using high entropy alloys

08-May-2018 - Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have created new superconductors made of layers of bismuth sulfide (BiS2) and a high entropy rare earth alloy oxyfluoride, containing five different rare earth (RE) elements at the same crystallographic site. The new material retains superconducting ...

Prediction of nonmetallic half-metallicity

19-Sep-2017 - A team of researchers from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) and the Institute for Theoretical and Applied Electrodynamics (ITAE) of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), in collaboration with a colleague from RIKEN (Institute for Physical and Chemical Research in Japan), has ...

Nickel for thought

Compound shows potential for high-temperature superconductivity

20-Jun-2017 - A team of researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory has identified a nickel oxide compound as an unconventional but promising candidate material for high-temperature superconductivity. The team successfully synthesized single crystals of a metallic trilayer ...

A new spin on electronics

17-Feb-2017 - Modern computer technology is based on the transport of electric charge in semiconductors. But this technology's potential will be reaching its limits in the near future, since the components deployed cannot be miniaturized further. But, there is another option: using an electron's spin, instead ...

Synthesized microporous 3-D graphene-like carbons

Research team create carbon synthesis using zeolites as a template

30-Jun-2016 - Graphene, an allotrope of carbon, discovered more than a decade ago has led to myriad research that seeks to unlock its vast potential. Zeolites, commonly used microporous solid catalysts in the petrochemical industry, have recently attracted attention in the field of material science as a ...