New insights into uranium’s tricky chemistry

Probing the depths of complex electron shells

09-Sep-2024 - The heavy metal uranium is, besides its radioactive reputation, known for its intricate chemistry and diverse bonding behaviors. Now, an international team of scientists utilized synchrotron light at the Rossendorf Beamline (ROBL) to explore the unique properties of low-valent uranium compounds, ...

Magnetic bacteria can help to extract dangerous heavy metals from wastewater

Filigree sewage plants

10-May-2023 - A research team at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) has managed to purify water containing uranium using a special kind of bacteria known as magnetotactic bacteria. The name derives from their ability to react to magnetic fields. They can accumulate dissolved heavy metal in their ...

Building scaffolds using exotic elements: Research team succeeds in creating novel metal-organic frameworks

13-Sep-2022 - Discovered 25 years ago, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) quickly gained the aura of a “miracle material” due to their particular properties: their large inner surfaces and tuneable pore sizes facilitate improved applications, for example in materials separation and gas storage. While previous ...

Where does gold come from?

New insights into element synthesis in the universe

17-Nov-2021 - How are chemical elements produced in our Universe? Where do heavy elements like gold and uranium come from? Using computer simulations, a research team from the GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung in Darmstadt, together with colleagues from Belgium and Japan, shows that the synthesis ...

Common table salt may have been crucial for the origins of life

30-Nov-2018 - One of the most fundamental unexplained questions in modern science is how life began. Scientists generally believe that simple molecules present in early planetary environments were converted to more complex ones that could have helped jumpstart life by the input of energy from the environment. ...

Nitrogen fixation in ambient conditions

13-Nov-2018 - Abundant in nature (78% of the air we breathe), nitrogen is rarely used in the industrial production of chemicals, with the most important process being the synthesis of ammonia, which is in turn used for the preparation of agricultural fertilizers. Using nitrogen as a raw material ("feedstock") ...

New properties of uranium compounds

17-Oct-2018 - Scientists from Russia, China, and the United States predicted and experimentally identified new uranium hydrides, predicting superconductivity for some of them.Of particular interest to scientists are the so-called "high-temperature superconductors" that boast superconductivity at less extreme ...

Widespread uranium contamination found in India's groundwater

11-Jun-2018 - A new Duke University-led study has found widespread uranium contamination in groundwater from aquifers in 16 Indian states. The main source of the uranium contamination is natural, but human factors such as groundwater-table decline and nitrate pollution may be exacerbating the problem. Several ...

Insight into a hidden order

23-Oct-2017 - A specific uranium compound has puzzled researchers for thirty years. Although the crystal structure is simple, no one understands exactly what is happening once it is cooled below a certain temperature. Apparently, a “hidden order” emerges, whose nature is completely unknown.Now physicists have ...

Heavy elements in neutron star mergers detected

Predictions by GSI scientists confirmed

18-Oct-2017 - Central predictions by GSI scientists on the formation of heavy elements such as gold and platinum in the universe have now been observed astrophysically. For the first time gravitational waves of merging neutron stars were detected. This also puts further focus on the future accelerator facility ...