Both the depletion of fossil fuels and the environmental concerns are a powerful drive for the development of sustainable routes to commodity chemicals. Lignocellulose, comprised of lignin, cellulose and hemicellulose, is the ideal candidate, but its inherent complexity hampers its transformation to value-added chemicals. The group of Katalin Barta at the University of Groningen has […]
Chemistry • Condensed matter • Energy • Materials • Physics • Quantum physics
Following the need for new and renewable sources of energy worldwide, fuel cells using electrocatalysts can be thought of as viable options. Catalyst materials modify and increase the rate of chemical reactions without itself undergoing any permanent change. An electrocatalyst is a catalyst that participates in electrochemical reactions and that functions at electrode surfaces or […]
Author: Carles Martí is a Ph.D. student (ITN-EJD-TCCM) at University of Perugia Nowadays, mostly everybody has heard about global warming, a problem that humanity faces and that can drastically change our climate in the upcoming years. This is caused by the, also well known, greenhouse effect, produced by the gases our modern society generates, to […]
In nature, light harvesting organisms make extensive use of energy and electron transfer between adjacent molecules. Thus, in the photosynthetic cell of an algae, bacterium, or plant, there are light-sensitive molecules called chromophores, which contain a π-conjugated system (a system with alternate single and double bonds), arranged in an antenna-shaped structure named a photocomplex. When […]
Chemistry • Condensed matter • Energy • Materials • Physics
The German mineralogist Gustav Rose (1798 – 1873) made important contributions in the fields of petrology and crystallography. He was the first to use a reflective goniometer in Germany and developed a particular interest in the relationship between the crystalline form and the physical properties of minerals. As a consequence, he contributed significantly to the […]
As the search for renewable energy sources has intensified, the discovery of efficient and cheap technologies for exploiting the energy from the sunlight has emerged as a key challenge. Higher efficiency plays an increasingly important role in making competitive solar cell designs as the price of silicon continues to drop. At present, the actual silicon […]
Lithium-ion batteries are widely used in portable electronic devices and electric vehicles since their introduction by Sony in 1991. Safety is an important concern since about two billion cells are produced every year but with a one-in-200,000 failure rate. Excessive temperature variations and high temperatures over the melting point of the metallic lithium can cause […]
Sunlight is the most important energy source of Earth. All earthlings live thanks to the ability of plants and bacteria to transform solar energy into chemical one. As sunlight is a free, and practically unlimited, energy source it is easy to understand the general interest in finding efficient ways of transforming it into electrical power […]
Approximately 90% of world’s electricity is generated in turbines moved by hot steam, which, unfortunately, operate only at 30 to 40 percent efficiency. This means that around two thirds of the total energy input is lost into the environment as waste heat. Thermoelectric materials can convert such waste heat into useful electricity, although they are […]
The most widely used metaphors for nuclear fusion reactors are the recreation of the Sun on Earth and the controlled explosion of a hydrogen bomb. In both cases, the first thing that comes to mind is the need for high-performance radiation-resistant materials to contain the fusion reaction. The selection and design of new materials that […]