Chemistry researchers modify solar technology to produce a less harmful greenhouse gas

Potential for environmentally friendly fuels

09-Apr-2024 - Researchers in the UNC-Chapel Hill Chemistry Department are using semiconductors to harvest and convert the sun’s energy into high-energy compounds that have the potential to produce environmentally friendly fuels. In the paper, "Methyl Termination of p-Type Silicon Enables Selective ...

Chemists develop radical way to make it easier, more profitable to recycle plastic

By modifying carbon-hydrogen bonds, chemists transform plastic trash into tougher, stronger material

09-Feb-2022 - The United States generates more plastic trash than any other country – about 46.3 million tons of it -- or 287 pounds per person a year,according to a 2020 study. The country’s 9% rate of recycling will never keep up. Why so low? The chemistry of today’s plastics makes most difficult to ...

Researchers crack 50-year-old nuclear waste problem, make storage safer

18-Mar-2016 - Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have adapted a technology developed for solar energy in order to selectively remove one of the trickiest and most-difficult-to-remove elements in nuclear waste pools across the country, making the storage of nuclear waste safer and ...

Sandcastles inspire new nanoparticle binding technique

11-Aug-2015 - If you want to form very flexible chains of nanoparticles in liquid in order to build tiny robots with flexible joints or make magnetically self-healing gels, you need to revert to childhood and think about sandcastles. Researchers from North Carolina State University and the University of North ...

Nonflammable lithium ion battery

12-Feb-2014 - In studying a material that prevents marine life from sticking to the bottom of ships, researchers led by chemist Joseph DeSimone at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have identified a surprising replacement for the only inherently flammable component of today's lithium-ion ...

Water-soluble catalyst converts carbon dioxide to promising green fuel

23-Jul-2013 - Scientists in the United States have developed a water-soluble catalyst that can selectively reduce carbon dioxide to formate, a promising green fuel for fuel cells. Researchers describe the design of an iridium pincer catalyst that electrocatalytically reduces carbon dioxide to formate in water. ...

Researchers pinpoint how trees play role in smog production

29-Apr-2013 - After years of scientific uncertainty and speculation, researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill show exactly how trees help create one of society's predominant environmental and health concerns: air pollution. It has long been known that trees produce and emit isoprene, an ...

Switching Qubits with a Terahertz Source?

Rotational transitions induced in molecules on a chip could have important applications in quantum computing

07-Mar-2011 - Scientists in Germany and the USA have been able to induce rotational transitions in molecules trapped at a close distance above a chip using a terahertz source. The new results, which are published in ChemPhysChem, could have interesting applications in quantum ...

Researchers make key step towards turning methane gas into liquid fuel

27-Oct-2009 - Researchers at the University of Washington and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have taken an important step in converting methane gas to a liquid, potentially making it more useful as a fuel and as a source for making other chemicals. Methane, the primary component of natural ...

New UNC experiments show very weak chlorine solutions can kill noroviruses

03-Jan-2006 - Chlorine solutions much weaker than previously believed can still be used to kill more than 99 percent of noroviruses, the chief cause of outbreaks of gastrointestinal illness around the world, a new University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill study concludes. Researchers discovered for the ...