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[Images above] Credit: NIST


NANOMATERIALS

Twistoptics: A new way to control optical nonlinearity

Columbia University researchers report that they developed a new, efficient way to modulate and enhance optical second harmonic generation in hexagonal boron nitride using micromechanical rotation and multilayer stacking.

Cheap, nontoxic carbon nanodots poised to be quantum dots of the future

Researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the University of Delaware, Baltimore County found good and bad emitters among populations of carbon dots using ultrafast nanometric imaging. This observation suggests that by selecting only super-emitters, carbon nanodots can be purified to replace toxic metal quantum dots in many applications.


ENERGY

A fluid solution to dendrite growth in lithium metal batteries

Researchers from the University of California, Davis, propose that flowing ions near the cathode of a rechargeable lithium metal battery may help prevent dendrite growth because it stabilizes the competition of mass transfer and reduction rate of lithium ions near the cathode surface.

Field study shows icing can cost wind turbines up to 80% of power production

Researchers took their studies of wind-turbine icing out of the lab and into the field to learn how and where ice accumulates on rotating blades. They learned ice on the blades can reduce power production by up to 80%. The field experiments also validated their experimental findings, theories, and predictions.


BIOMATERIALS

A materials science approach to combating coronavirus

Researchers at Tokyo Institute of Technology, Kanagawa Institute of Industrial Science and Technology, and Nara Medical University prepared two types of cerium molybdate powders that exhibit high antiviral activity against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

Fluorescent nanodiamonds successfully injected into living cells

Researchers succeeded in injecting a large number of nanodiamonds directly into a cell interior using mild electrical pulses. The same technique could eventually be used to transport other molecules in order to alter cells or heal diseased cells.


ENVIRONMENT

New process for concrete recycling

Swiss multinational specialty chemical company Sika developed a new recycling process for old concrete. The old concrete is broken down into the individual parts gravel, sand, and limestone, which also binds about 60 kg of CO2 per ton of crushed concrete demolition waste.

Building from old buildings: demolition waste is being turned into new concrete

A team led by Italian engineers has refined the processing of demolition waste on site and tested ways of using the resulting streams of powders and aggregates in fresh concrete.


OTHER STORIES

Molybdenum disulfide may usher in era of post-silicon photonics

Researchers at the Moscow Institute of Physics, together with colleagues from Spain, Great Britain, Sweden, and Singapore, measured giant optical anisotropy in layered molybdenum disulfide crystals for the first time. The scientists suggest that such transition metal dichalcogenide crystals will replace silicon in photonics.

Covering metal catalyst surfaces with 2D oxide materials can enhance chemical reactions

Researchers led by Brookhaven National Laboratory found that partially covering metal surfaces acting as catalysts with thin films of silica can impact the energies and rates of these reactions because the silica forms a 2D array of hexagonal-prism-shaped “cages.”

Nuclear engineering researchers develop resilient oxide dispersion strengthened alloy

Texas A&M University researchers showed superior performance of a new oxide dispersion strengthened alloy they developed for use in both fission and fusion reactors. Almost all commercial ODS alloys are based on the ferritic phase, but the researchers embedded oxide particles in the martensitic phase.

Chemists predict more than 200 new carbon allotropes

Researchers at Samara State Technical University in Russia and Northwestern Polytechnical University in China used the ToposPro software package to predict 224 previously unknown allotropes of carbon with crystal lattice energy close to that of a diamond.

The invention of the test tube

An article on JSTOR Daily details how chemists learned to blow their own glass vessels in the nineteenth century. Before then, chemists and alchemists used containers made from a range of materials, including metal and ceramics.

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