/ en-us Â鶹ÒùÔº internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Â鶹ÒùÔºics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. Chemists from the National University of Singapore (NUS) have developed an iron-catalyzed method that overcomes a significant challenge in the sustainable synthesis of trisubstituted Z-alkenes by inserting two alkyl chemical groups into a type of compound called allenes. The findings were published in the journal Nature Synthesis. /news/2024-09-iron-catalysts-sustainable-route-prized.html Analytical Chemistry Materials Science Fri, 27 Sep 2024 09:46:06 EDT news646649159 Skoltech scientists and their Chinese colleagues have determined the conditions that enable the existence of a very peculiar ion. Dubbed aquodiium, it can be conceptualized as an ordinary neutral molecule of water with two additional protons stuck to it, resulting in a net double positive charge. /news/2024-05-outlandish-molecule-lurking-uranus-neptune.html Planetary Sciences Fri, 31 May 2024 12:13:03 EDT news636376381 Use of the greenhouse gas CO2 as a chemical raw material would not only reduce emissions, but also the consumption of fossil feedstocks. A novel metal-free organic framework could make it possible to electrocatalytically produce ethylene, a primary chemical raw material, from CO2. /news/2024-05-metal-free-framework-electrocatalytic-production.html Materials Science Wed, 22 May 2024 10:23:06 EDT news635592184 National University of Singapore (NUS) chemists have solved a longstanding challenge in the synthesis of congested C(sp3)-rich molecules by developing a new iron-catalyzed reaction that generates two alkyl-alkyl bonds in crowded environments. The work is published in Nature Catalysis. /news/2024-03-earth-abundant-iron-catalysis-enables.html Analytical Chemistry Materials Science Wed, 06 Mar 2024 10:12:39 EST news628942356 A team of chemists, materials scientists and aeronautical engineers at Beihang University, working with one colleague from Yanshan University and another from the University of Chicago, reports evidence of self-healing in a sample of synthetic diamond at room temperature. /news/2023-09-self-healing-synthetic-diamonds-room-temperature.html Analytical Chemistry Materials Science Fri, 29 Sep 2023 09:59:18 EDT news615200354 Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have found that gold nanoparticles supported on a zirconium oxide surface help turn waste materials like biomass and polyester into organosilane compounds, valuable chemicals used in a wide range of applications. The new protocol leverages the cooperation between gold nanoparticles and the amphoteric (both acid and base) nature of the zirconium oxide support. The result is a reaction that requires less demanding conditions—a greener method for upcycling waste. /news/2023-03-catalyst-plastic-organosilane-compounds.html Polymers Materials Science Mon, 20 Mar 2023 08:58:39 EDT news598521515 The missing step in the formation of a lipid molecule that allows certain single-celled organisms to survive the most extreme environments on Earth has now been deciphered. This new understanding, uncovered by a team of biochemists from Penn State and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, could improve the ability of the lipids to be used as an indicator of temperature across geological time. /news/2022-08-revealed-lipid-formation-enable-climates.html Biochemistry Analytical Chemistry Tue, 23 Aug 2022 10:33:03 EDT news580469581 For over a decade, scientists have attempted to synthesize a new form of carbon called graphyne with limited success. That endeavor is now at an end, though, thanks to new research from the University of Colorado Boulder. /news/2022-05-long-hypothesized-material.html Nanomaterials Materials Science Sat, 21 May 2022 01:45:04 EDT news572316297 Diamond and graphite are two naturally occurring carbon allotropes that we have known about for thousands of years. They are elemental carbons that are arranged in a manner so that they consist of sp3 and sp2 hybridized carbon atoms, respectively. More recently, the discovery of various other carbon allotrope materials, such as graphene, fullerene, carbon nanotube, graphyne, and graphdiyne, has been revolutionizing modern nanomaterials science. In particular, graphene research has made significant advances in modern chemistry and physics because of its fascinating properties. /news/2022-05-synthesis-two-dimensional-holey-graphyne.html Nanomaterials Wed, 18 May 2022 11:33:42 EDT news572092420 NUS chemists have developed a new "catalyst control" blueprint to overcome a longstanding challenge in the site-selective dicarbofunctionalization of unactivated alkenes, by enabling the reaction to proceed in the absence of directing or activating groups to access valuable sp3-hybridized carbon frameworks. /news/2021-12-group-free-alkene-dicarbofunctionalization-catalyst.html Materials Science Mon, 27 Dec 2021 12:18:14 EST news559829855 A team of researchers from China, Germany and the U.S. has developed a way to create a less fragile diamond. In their paper published in the journal Nature, the group describes their approach to creating a paracrystalline diamond and possible uses for it. /news/2021-11-fragile-diamond-fullerenes.html Nanophysics Nanomaterials Sun, 28 Nov 2021 10:00:01 EST news557141353 Researchers at the University of Tsukuba used computer calculations to design a new carbon-based material even harder than diamond. This structure, dubbed "pentadiamond" by its creators, may be useful for replacing current synthetic diamonds in difficult cutting manufacturing tasks. /news/2020-07-harder-diamond-pentadiamonds.html Condensed Matter Wed, 01 Jul 2020 08:59:22 EDT news512812757 In a new report published in Science Advances, Sulgiye Park and a research team in geological sciences, materials and energy sciences, advanced research and advanced radiation sources in the U.S. and Beijing, China, developed a carbon-based nanomaterial with exceptional properties. They used new "diamondoids" as a promising precursor to develop laser-induced, high-pressure and high-temperature diamonds. The lowest pressure and temperature conditions to yield diamonds in the study were 12 GPa at approximately 2000 K and 900 K at a pressure of 20 GPa, respectively. The work showed a substantially reduced transformation barrier compared with diamond synthesis using conventional hydrocarbon allotropes. Park et al. credited the observations to structural similarities and the full sp3 hybridization of both diamondoids and bulk diamond. /news/2020-03-carbon-based-nanomaterial-facile-diamond-synthesis.html Nanomaterials Thu, 05 Mar 2020 09:30:02 EST news502621098 The discovery of new families of two-dimensional (2-D) layered materials beyond graphene has always attracted great attention, but it remains challenging to artificially recreate the honeycomb atomic lattice structure with multi-components such as hexagonal boron nitride in the lab. In a new study now published on Science Advances, Junseong Song and colleagues at the departments of Energy Science, Nanostructure Â鶹ÒùÔºics, Environmental Science and Materials Science in the Republic of Korea developed an unprecedented structure of the Zintl phase. /news/2019-07-two-dimensional-layered-zintl-phase-dimensional.html Condensed Matter Fri, 12 Jul 2019 09:30:05 EDT news481959969 (Â鶹ÒùÔº)—John C. K. Chu and Tomislav Rovis of Colorado State University and Columbia University have devised a strategy for C-C bond formation at inert tertiary C-H bonds of amides. This reaction involves cleavage of the C-H bond and subsequent coupling with an alkene. Their reaction works with a variety of amides and alkenes and is selective for a particular C-H among all seemingly indistinguishable C-H bonds. Their report appears in Nature. /news/2016-11-carbon-carbon-bond-formation-aliphatic-carbon.html Materials Science Wed, 02 Nov 2016 09:10:01 EDT news397295852 (Â鶹ÒùÔº)—A group of researchers from France, the U.K. and Florida proposes criteria to determine whether an allotrope is experimentally feasible. They use theoretical carbon allotropes, penta-graphene and Haeckelites, as examples and demonstrate why penta-graphene, contrary to recent research, is not experimentally practical while Haeckelites could be isolated in the presence of charge transfer ions. Their study appears in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. /news/2016-01-criteria-experimentally-stable-allotropes.html Condensed Matter Tue, 05 Jan 2016 09:30:01 EST news371197094 (Â鶹ÒùÔº) —Boron is the ambivert of atoms. Technically classified as a metalloid, boron can undergo organic reactions, forming covalent bonds like carbon, but it can also form ions resulting in metal-like bonds. Several studies have exploited both of these properties of boron to isolate acylborons, by coordinating the boron to a ligand, similar to a metal-ligand interaction. /news/2015-03-class-monofluoro-acylboronates-stable-air.html Materials Science Fri, 06 Mar 2015 11:50:01 EST news344861332 (Â鶹ÒùÔºOrg.com) -- By applying extreme pressure to compress and flatten carbon nanotubes, scientists have discovered that they can create a new carbon polymer that simulations show is hard enough to crack diamond. The pressure-induced formation process of the new carbon allotrope, called Cco-C8, is similar to the 3D polymerization of the soccer-ball-like buckminsterfullerene, C60, at high pressure. When the carbon nanotube bundle is subjected to further compression, it becomes even more distorted and flattened to produce the Cco-C8 structure. /news/2011-12-superhard-carbon-material-diamond.html Nanomaterials Wed, 07 Dec 2011 09:30:01 EST news242467958 The future brightened for organic chemistry when researchers at Rice University found a highly controllable way to attach organic molecules to pristine graphene, making the miracle material suitable for a range of new applications. /news/2011-11-graphene-possibilities.html Nanomaterials Tue, 29 Nov 2011 13:20:25 EST news241795098