Showing Spotlights 25 - 32 of 2140 in category (newest first):
Recently, researchers have engineered a next-generation battery technology - known as metal-air batteries - which can be easily fabricated into flexible and wristband-like cells. Although metal-air batteries powered devices still are not ready yet for commercial applications, the current studies have established solid evidence that these devices have provided enormous opportunities to develop the next generation of flexible, wearable and bio-adaptable power sources. Researchers now report a solution to overcoming the current limitation on sluggish reaction kinetics of air cathodes in Mg-air batteries.
Nov 20th, 2018
A novel nanoscale additive manufacturing technique termed Nanotribological Printing creates structures through tribomechanical and tribochemical surface interactions at the contact between a substrate and an atomic force microscope probe, where material pattern formation is driven by normal and shear contact stresses. This technique advances the field of nanomanufacturing by providing a versatile and easily accessible method for creating complex (multi-material) nanostructures, with high precision and uniquely superior mechanical properties.
Nov 13th, 2018
In recent years, black-phosphorus-analogue (BPA) two-dimensional materials have been demonstrated to exhibit promising optoelectronic performances and distinguished ambient stabilities, holding great promise in practical applications. In new work, researchers demonstrated that ultra-small 2D beta-lead oxide quantum dots showed fast carrier dynamics and significantly high photocurrent density and excellent ambient stability. These findings hold great potential for high-performance BPA-based optoelectronic devices.
Nov 6th, 2018
The ability to produce ammonia efficiently from air and water at room temperature and ambient pressure is of great interest in agriculture where it is used in fertilizers. In particular, the electrochemical reduction of nitrogen, in which the conversion of nitrogen to ammonia takes place under mild conditions, is highly relevant for the chemical industry that needs to cope with increasing demands for ammonia and at the same time is under pressure to reduce its ecological footprint. A new study describes novel single-atom catalysts as fascinating electrocatalysts for the application in nirtogen reduction.
Nov 5th, 2018
Researchers investigated the thermal conductivity and thermal diffusivity of epoxy composites with high loading fractions of graphene and h-BN fillers. They found that the graphene fillers outperformed boron nitride fillers in terms of thermal conductivity enhancement. The surprising finding is that, in the high loading composites with quasi-2D fillers, the apparent cross-plane thermal conductivity of the fillers can be the limiting factor for heat conduction. These results are important for developing the next generation of the thermal interface materials.
Oct 30th, 2018
Researchers investigated the potentially protective role of nanoceria against oxidative stress associated with microgravity and cosmic radiations in space. Their findings support the application of antioxidant nanomaterials to skeletal muscle tissue culture for protection from the noxious effects of microgravity and cosmic radiations, which result in muscle mass and force loss and limit human operations and permanence in space. On Earth, these deteriorations are usually associated with aging or pathologies and are exhibited over longer time intervals compared to those occurring in space.
Oct 29th, 2018
In the past few years, monolayer and multilayer silicenes have been successfully grown on various metal substrates. Unfortunately, silicene on metal substrate generally exhibits metallic or semi-metallic character without a bandgap, and thus cannot be used as adsorption layer of photovoltaic materials. A new comprehensive investigation of multilayer silicene by means of ab initio swarm-intelligence structure-searching method predicts that tri-layer silicene is an ideal candidate for high-efficiency photovoltaic absorbers.
Oct 15th, 2018
A new study on worldwide graphene production shows unequivocally that the quality of the graphene produced in the world today is rather poor, not optimal for most applications, and most companies are producing graphite microplatelets. This is possibly the main reason for the slow development of graphene applications, which usually require a customized solution in terms of graphene properties. A conclusion that sounds even more damming is that this extensive study of graphene production worldwide indicates that there is almost no high quality graphene, as defined by ISO, in the market yet.
Oct 9th, 2018
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