Illuminating study advances ‘green’ reducing agents

20-Jan-2023

There are many ways to initiate chemical reactions in liquids, but placing free electrons directly into water, ammonia and other liquid solutions is especially attractive for green chemistry becausesolvated electrons are inherently clean, leaving behind no side products after they react. In ...

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Photochemistry method eases manufacture of drug, chemical precursors

11-Jan-2023

Inexpensive iron salts are a key to simplifying the manufacture of essential precursors for drugs and other chemicals, according to scientists at Rice University. They’ve refined the process of producing diazides, building-block molecules in the production of drugs and agricultural chemicals. ...

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The method can predict shapes of crystals that lack symmetry

30-Nov-2022

A crystal’s shape is determined by its inherent chemistry, a characteristic that ultimately determines its final form from the most basic of details. But sometimes the lack of symmetry in a crystal makes the surface energies of its facets unknowable, confounding any theoretical prediction of its ...

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Start-up Syzygy Plasmonics has licensed technology

28-Nov-2022

Rice University researchers have engineered a key light-activated nanomaterial for the hydrogen economy. Using only inexpensive raw materials, a team from Rice’sLaboratory for Nanophotonics,Syzygy Plasmonics Inc.and Princeton University’sAndlinger Center for Energy and the Environmentcreated ...

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Engineers develop stable devices that don’t require expensive iridium

26-Oct-2022

Creating ahydrogen economyis no small task, but Rice University engineers have discovered a method that could makeoxygen evolutioncatalysis in acids, one of the most challenging topics in water electrolysis forproducing clean hydrogen fuels, more economical and practical. The lab of chemical ...

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A bit of brushing may be the secret to making better rechargeable lithium batteries

31-Aug-2022

The Rice University lab of chemistJames Tourintroduced a technique to tune the surface of anodes for batteries by simply brushing powders into them. The powder adheres to the anode and becomes a thin, lithiated coating that effectively prevents the formation ofdamaging dendrites. A powder of ...

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Rice lab leads effort to generate thickness-independent piezoelectricity in atom-thick materials

19-Aug-2022

There’s stillplenty of room at the bottomto generatepiezoelectricity. Engineers at Rice University and their colleagues are showing the way. A new study describes the discovery of piezoelectricity — the phenomenon by which mechanical energy turns into electrical energy — acrossphase ...

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Ruthenium and copper catalyze a more environmentally friendly way to produce essential chemical

04-May-2022

A dash ofrutheniumatoms on a mesh of copper nanowires could be one step toward a revolution in the global ammonia industry that also helps the environment. Collaborators at Rice University’sGeorge R. Brown School of Engineering,Arizona State Universityand Pacific Northwest National ...

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Rice University lab turns hard-to-process trash into carbon-capture master

07-Apr-2022

Here’s another thing to do with that mountain of used plastic: make it soak up excess carbon dioxide. What seems like a win-win for a pair of pressing environmental problems describes a Rice University lab’s newly discovered chemical technique to turn waste plastic into an effective carbon ...

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Rice engineers show spinning magnetic particles surprisingly follow thermodynamic laws

17-Mar-2022

Small spheres suspended in a liquid move enough like molecules that the physics for one can be used to mimic the physics of the other. That’s why the discovery of some unusual physics incolloids-- particles dispersed in a solution such asmilk, for example-- could be of interest to ...

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