Heavy Metals in the Ocean Become More Toxic

How Climate Change Impacts Contaminants in the Sea

11-Oct-2024 - Toxic trace elements such as lead, mercury, arsenic and cadmium occur naturally in small quantities in coastal seas. However, human activities such as industry and agriculture contribute significantly larger amounts. A new study has examined how climate change is already affecting the ...

New material will make locally flexible diodes possible

Temperature changes material characteristics: Researchers find new material with significant potential for electronics applications

08-Nov-2022 - Diodes allow directed flows of current. Without them, modern electronics would be inconceivable. Until now, they had to be made out of two materials with different characteristics. A research team at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has now discovered a material that makes it possible to ...

Nanomaterial from the Middle Ages

Unlocking the secrets of Zwischgold

12-Oct-2022 - To gild sculptures in the late Middle Ages, artists often applied ultra-thin gold foil supported by a silver base layer. For the first time, scientists at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI have managed to produce nanoscale 3D images of this material, known as Zwischgold. The pictures show this was ...

Copper is effective against Sars-Cov-2 on surfaces – silver is not

Silver nanopatches leave the virus unimpressed

09-May-2022 - Copper and silver are known for their antibacterial properties. Researchers from Bochum have explored their effectiveness against viruses. Silver and copper ions wipe out many pathogens. That’s why implants and medical instruments, for example, are coated with these metals. Researchers from ...

Copper-silver-gold nanostructure gives carbon-capture-and-utilization a boost

“We thought if two metals were producing good results, then perhaps three metals would be even better”

18-Mar-2022 - Chemists have developed a nano-scale structure that combines copper, gold and silver to work as a superior catalyst in a chemical reaction whose improved performance will be essential if carbon capture and utilization efforts are to succeed in helping to mitigate global warming. In the face of ...

Cerium sidelines silver to make drug precursor

Rice University lab's process simplifies fluoroketone synthesis

02-Mar-2021 - Save your silver! It's better used for jewelry than as a catalyst for drugs. Rice University scientists have developed a greatly simplified method to make fluoroketones, precursors for drug design and manufacture that typically require a silver catalyst. Rice chemist Julian West and graduate ...

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 ...

A touch of gold and silver

For the first time, it is possible to produce crystalline layers of precious metals that consist of a single atomic layer and which are semiconducting

05-Jun-2020 - Metals are usually characterized by good electrical conductivity. This applies in particular to gold and silver. However, researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart, together with partners in Pisa and Lund, have now discovered that some precious metals lose ...

Little Heaps of Silver, All Wrapped Up

Determination of the crystal structure of a DNA-stabilized silver nanocluster

13-Sep-2019 - Nanoclusters are little “heaps” of a few atoms that often have interesting optical properties and could become useful probes for imaging processes in areas such as biomedicine and diagnostics. In the journal Angewandte Chemie, researchers have introduced a nanocluster of 16 silver atoms ...

Analytical tool designs corkscrew-shaped nano-antennae

Save time using maths

26-Aug-2019 - For the first time, an HZB team has derived analytically how corkscrew-shaped nano-antennas interact with light. The mathematical tool can be used to calculate the geometry that a nano-antenna must have for specific applications in sensor technology or information technology. The nanostructures ...