/ 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. Researchers at Kumamoto University and Nagoya University have developed a new class of two-dimensional (2D) metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) using triptycene-based molecules, marking a breakthrough in the quest to understand and enhance the physical properties of these promising materials. The work is published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. /news/2025-08-high-quality-crystals-enable-insights.html Analytical Chemistry Materials Science Fri, 01 Aug 2025 09:41:04 EDT news673260062 Protons are the basis of bioenergetics. The ability to move them through biological systems is essential for life. A new study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows for the first time that proton transfer is directly influenced by the spin of electrons when measured in chiral biological environments such as proteins. In other words, proton movement in living systems is not purely chemical; it is also a quantum process involving electron spin and molecular chirality. /news/2025-05-quantum-effects-proteins-tiny-particles.html Biochemistry Analytical Chemistry Mon, 05 May 2025 15:35:34 EDT news665678126 U.S. Naval Research Laboratory and Aarhus University, Denmark, researchers have confirmed protonic conductivity over distances exceeding 100 micrometers along filamentous Desulfobulbaceae, commonly referred to as cable bacteria. Findings provide insights into microbial proton transport mechanisms and open pathways for applications in bioelectronics. /news/2025-01-cable-bacteria-protons-micrometers-hinting.html Cell & Microbiology Biotechnology Mon, 20 Jan 2025 11:20:07 EST news656591740 Door handles, taps, playground slides, furry pets… Getting zapped by static electricity is a common experience. But the physics that causes the spark is surprisingly intricate. /news/2024-12-static-everyday.html Other Wed, 04 Dec 2024 09:41:47 EST news652527700 Hydrogen gas, owing to its high energy density and carbon-free nature, is gaining much attention as the energy source for a green and sustainable future. Despite being the most abundant element in the universe, hydrogen is mostly found in a bound state as chemical compounds such as ammonia, metal hydrides, and other hydrogenated compounds. /news/2024-09-temperature-ammonia-hydrogen-conversion-electric.html Analytical Chemistry Materials Science Tue, 24 Sep 2024 11:48:03 EDT news646397281 MIT physicists and colleagues report new insights into exotic particles key to a form of magnetism that has attracted growing interest because it originates from ultrathin materials only a few atomic layers thick. The work, which could impact future electronics and more, also establishes a new way to study these particles through a powerful instrument at the National Synchrotron Light Source II at Brookhaven National Laboratory. /news/2024-08-physicists-insights-exotic-particles-key.html General Â鶹ÒùÔºics Condensed Matter Thu, 01 Aug 2024 16:05:48 EDT news641747119 Chemists at RIKEN have developed a method for making synthetic derivatives of the natural dye indigo that doesn't require harsh conditions. This discovery could inspire advances in electronic devices, including light-responsive gadgets and stretchy biomedical sensors. /news/2024-02-method-synthetic-derivative-natural-indigo.html Analytical Chemistry Materials Science Thu, 01 Feb 2024 15:00:02 EST news626022001 For the first time, Stanford researchers have found a way to create and stabilize an extremely rare form of gold that has lost two negatively charged electrons, denoted Au2+. The material stabilizing this elusive version of the valued element is a halide perovskite—a class of crystalline materials that holds great promise for various applications including more-efficient solar cells, light sources, and electronics components. /news/2023-09-rare-gold-unveil-material-infused.html Materials Science Sat, 30 Sep 2023 04:01:54 EDT news615265297 When your laptop or smartphone heats up, it's due to energy that's lost in translation. The same goes for power lines that transmit electricity between cities. In fact, around 10 percent of the generated energy is lost in the transmission of electricity. That's because the electrons that carry electric charge do so as free agents, bumping and grazing against other electrons as they move collectively through power cords and transmission lines. All this jostling generates friction, and, ultimately, heat. /news/2023-07-physicists-generate-snapshots-fermion-pairs.html General Â鶹ÒùÔºics Thu, 06 Jul 2023 14:00:01 EDT news607870293 The discovery of Ba2LuAlO5 as a promising proton conductor paints a bright future for protonic ceramic fuel cells, report scientists from Tokyo Tech. Experiments show that this novel material has a remarkably high proton conductivity even without any additional chemical modifications, and molecular dynamics simulations reveal the underlying reasons. These new insights may pave the way to safer and more efficient energy technologies. /news/2023-06-scientists-proton-conductor-next-generation-fuel.html Analytical Chemistry Materials Science Tue, 06 Jun 2023 09:59:42 EDT news605264377 Over eighty years ago, Rabi oscillations were proposed to describe the strong coupling and population transfer in a two-level quantum system exposed to an oscillatory driving field. As compared to atoms, molecules have an extra degree of vibration, which adds an additional knob to the Rabi oscillations in light-molecule interactions. However, how such a laser-driven Rabi oscillation during the stretching of molecular bonds determines the kinetic energy release (KER) spectrum of dissociative fragments is still an open question. /news/2023-02-rabi-oscillations-molecule.html Optics & Photonics Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Fri, 03 Feb 2023 12:40:03 EST news594650401 The origin of Earth's water has been an enduring mystery. There are different hypotheses and theories explaining how the water got here, and lots of evidence supporting them. /news/2022-12-earth-billion-years.html Planetary Sciences Fri, 16 Dec 2022 12:55:04 EST news590417700 Protons (H+) and hydronium ions (H3O+) in free aqueous solutions seem to migrate faster than other ions due to the the Grotthuss-mechanism. Individual protons do not really migrate at all. Instead, bonds of the hydronium ions are broken and new bonds to other water molecules are formed, so that the individual proton does not migrate. Rather charges are transported directly from one water molecule to the next. This process is quicker than the diffusion of an ion through the solution. /news/2021-09-confined-protons-migrate.html Nanophysics Wed, 08 Sep 2021 09:14:22 EDT news550311259 Phosphate glass is a versatile compound that has generated interest for its use in fuel cells and as biomaterials for supplying therapeutic ions. P2O5—the compound that forms the structural network of phosphate glass—is made up of phosphorus, an element that can adopt many different bonding configurations in combination with oxygen. /news/2021-08-glass-unravelling-ions-phosphate.html Materials Science Tue, 10 Aug 2021 16:07:24 EDT news547830441 In a new study of water dynamics, a team of MIT chemists led by Professor Mei Hong, in collaboration with Associate Professor Adam Willard, has discovered that water in an ion channel is anisotropic, or partially aligned. The researchers' data, the first of their kind, prove the relation of water dynamics and order to the conduction of protons in an ion channel. The work also provides potential new avenues for the development of antiviral drugs or other treatments. /news/2021-03-chemists-gain-insights-behavior-influenza.html Cell & Microbiology Molecular & Computational biology Fri, 19 Mar 2021 09:04:38 EDT news535363418 Mitochondria are the powerhouses of our cells, generating energy that supports life. A giant molecular proton pump, called complex I, is crucial: It sets in motion a chain of reactions, creating a proton gradient that powers the generation of ATP, the cell's fuel. Despite complex I's central role, the mechanism by which it transports protons across the membrane has so far been unknown. Now, Leonid Sazanov and his group at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (IST Austria) have solved the mystery of how complex I works: Conformational changes in the protein combined with electrostatic waves move protons into the mitochondrial matrix. This is the result of a study published today in Science. /news/2020-09-mystery-giant-proton.html Cell & Microbiology Molecular & Computational biology Thu, 24 Sep 2020 15:54:41 EDT news520181671 An infinite chain of hydrogen atoms is just about the simplest bulk material imaginable—a never-ending single-file line of protons surrounded by electrons. Yet a new computational study combining four cutting-edge methods finds that the modest material boasts fantastic and surprising quantum properties. /news/2020-09-infinite-chains-hydrogen-atoms-properties.html General Â鶹ÒùÔºics Mon, 14 Sep 2020 12:40:02 EDT news519305711 Electron movement—what scientists call electron transfer—powers many of life's functions. For example, a good deal of the energy we derive from the foods we eat is captured by a process that removes electrons from food molecules, like sugar or fat, and transfers them to the oxygen we breathe. /news/2020-07-scientists-distance-electron.html Materials Science Wed, 29 Jul 2020 07:55:09 EDT news515228099 Protons are subatomic particles with a positive electric charge. Proton translocation plays a significant role in natural phenomena and manmade technologies. But it remains challenging to control proton conduction and fabrication in biomaterials and devices. In a new report, Chao Ma and an interdisciplinary team of scientists in China, the Netherlands, and Germany, rationally designed proton-conducting protein constituent materials that exceeded previously reported proteinaceous (consisting of or containing protein) systems. They developed the structures through stepwise exploration of peptide sequences from intrinsically disordered coils to protein-supercharged polypeptide chimeras. The new design paradigm offers potential for bioprotonic device fabrication at the interfaces of artificial and biological systems, the results are published on Science Advances. /news/2020-07-freestanding-supercharged-polypeptide-proton-conducting-membrane.html Materials Science Fri, 24 Jul 2020 10:30:01 EDT news514799868 Over the past few years, fuel cells have become a focal point of research in eco-friendly technology because of their superior abilities to store and produce renewable energy and clean fuel. A typical type of fuel cell gaining ground is the proton-conducting fuel cell, which is primarily made of materials through which hydrogen ions (protons: H+), can easily move. Proton-conducting materials provide a number of advantages over commonly used fuel cells that comprise oxide-ion conductors for electrolytes, such as higher conductivity at low and intermediate temperatures, longer lifetimes, and lower costs. /news/2020-07-high-proton-conductors-inherently-oxygen.html Materials Science Mon, 06 Jul 2020 16:38:35 EDT news513272309 An international team of researchers from University College Dublin (UCD) and University of Saskatchewan, Canada, have observed 'proton-hopping' movement in a high-pressure form of ice (Ice VII lattices). /news/2020-05-protons-hopscotch-high-pressure-ice.html Condensed Matter Mon, 25 May 2020 09:53:14 EDT news509619190 In this post-industrialization age, electricity has become the backbone of our society. However, using fossil fuels to generate it is not the best option because of their limited availability and harmful nature. In the last two decades, significant efforts have been made to develop techniques to foster sustainable energy. Against this backdrop, solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) have risen as a clean and highly efficient alternative that can generate electrical energy. However, a major drawback of SOFCs is their high operating temperatures, restricting their widespread usage. /news/2020-03-thinner-electrolyte-functioning-solid-oxide.html Nanomaterials Wed, 25 Mar 2020 11:39:11 EDT news504355146 Outbursts of energetic particles that hurtle out from the sun and can disrupt space communications may be even more varied and numerous than previously thought, according to results from the closest-ever flyby of the sun. /news/2019-12-sun-close-up-reveals-atmosphere-highly.html Space Exploration Wed, 04 Dec 2019 14:11:40 EST news494691095 A team of scientists has uncovered new molecular properties of water—a discovery of a phenomenon that had previously gone unnoticed. /news/2018-08-behavior-waterscientists-properties-h2o.html Condensed Matter Mon, 13 Aug 2018 11:10:03 EDT news453377321 Basic processes in chemistry and biology involve protons in a water environment. Water structures accommodating protons and their motions have so far remained elusive. Applying ultrafast vibrational spectroscopy, researchers have mapped fluctuating proton transfer motions and provided direct evidence that protons in liquid water are predominantly shared by two water molecules. Femtosecond proton elongations within a hydration site are 10 to 50 times faster than proton hopping to a new site, the elementary proton transfer step in chemistry. /news/2017-07-ultrafast-motions-fleeting-geometries-proton.html General Â鶹ÒùÔºics Fri, 14 Jul 2017 06:00:12 EDT news419230799 Renewed investigation of a molecule that was originally synthesized with the goal of creating a unique light-absorbing pigment has led to the establishment of a novel design strategy for efficient light-emitting molecules with applications in next-generation displays and lighting. /news/2017-07-harnessing-hydrogens-high-efficiency-oleds.html Materials Science Mon, 10 Jul 2017 11:09:11 EDT news418903742 Hydrogen is regarded as the energy source of the future: It is produced with solar power and can be used to generate heat and electricity in fuel cells. Empa researchers have now succeeded in decoding the movement of hydrogen ions in crystals – a key step towards more efficient energy conversion in the hydrogen industry of tomorrow. /news/2017-06-protons-fuel-cell.html Materials Science Thu, 22 Jun 2017 09:00:02 EDT news417340460 Our society is in need of ammonia more than ever. Chemical fertilizers, plastic, fibers, pharmaceuticals, refrigerants in heat pumps, and even explosives all use ammonia as raw material. Moreover, ammonia has been suggested as a hydrogen carrier recently because of its high hydrogen content. /news/2017-06-ammonia-on-demand-alternative-production-method.html Materials Science Tue, 13 Jun 2017 09:57:55 EDT news416566669 Next-generation rechargeable batteries are promising candidates for state-of-the-art lithium-ion batteries, owing to their high energy density and preferred cost efficiency. For instance, lithium-sulfur batteries theoretically offer 10 times higher capacity and five times higher energy density. Shu Lei Chou and colleagues from the University of Wollongong have published a review article in National Science Review proposing a new concept of 4S (stable, safe, smart, sustainable) batteries. They reviewed the development of functional membrane separators in liquid-electrolyte next-generation batteries, based on which they report four important criteria for guiding the advancement of novel battery systems. /news/2017-05-advancing-next-generation-batteries-4s-stable.html Energy & Green Tech Fri, 19 May 2017 05:36:59 EDT news414391002 Waseda University researchers have developed a new method for producing hydrogen that is fast, irreversible, and takes place at much lower temperatures using less energy. This innovation is expected to contribute to the spread of fuel cell systems for automobiles and homes. /news/2016-12-hydrogen-temperature.html Materials Science Thu, 01 Dec 2016 06:25:14 EST news399795906