New procedure for better thermoplastics

New insights thanks to nano imaging and spectroscopy at the IRIS beamline of BESSY II

06-Nov-2024 - Bio-based thermoplastics are produced from renewable organic materials and can be recycled after use. Their resilience can be improved by blending bio-based thermoplastics with other thermoplastics. However, the interface between the materials in these blends sometimes requires enhancement to ...

Frozen noble gas in the accelerator

29-May-2024 - Researchers at European XFEL in Schenefeld near Hamburg have taken a closer look at the formation of the first crystallisation of nuclei in supercooled liquids. They found: The formation starts much later than previously assumed. The findings could help to better understand the creation of ice in ...

Tailoring chemical bonds

Specific identification of solids that drastically change their properties during crystallisation.

25-Jan-2024 - Solids can have two structurally very different states: crystal and glass. While the short-range order of the atoms in both states is generally very similar, only the atoms of the crystal have a long-range order. The similarity of the short-range order is attributed to the similarity of the ...

Novel approach towards nanomaterials developed

During this process, the team discovered an intriguing phenomenon

26-Sep-2023 - Scientists from the Friedrich Schiller University Jena and the Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, both Germany, have successfully developed nanomaterials using a so-called bottom-up approach. As reported in the scientific journal ACS Nano, they exploit the fact that crystals often ...

Revolutionizing lithium production on a string

Launch of a startup

25-Sep-2023 - A vital component of the batteries at the heart of electric vehicles and grid energy storage, lithium is key to a clean energy future. But producing the silvery-white metal comes with significant environmental costs. Among them is the vast amount of land and time needed to extract lithium from ...

Nanoparticles save historic buildings

Research team investigates nano-crystals for more strength of sandstone at DESY

21-Jul-2022 - Many historic buildings were built of sandstone, such as Vienna's St. Stephen's Cathedral. Sandstone is easy to work, but does not withstand weathering well. It consists of sand grains that are relatively weakly bonded to each other, so over the years parts of the stone keep crumbling away, often ...

Revolutionary images of the birth of crystals

A team from the UNIGE has succeeded in visualizing crystal nucleation - the stage that precedes crystallization - that was invisible until now

26-Apr-2022 - At the interface between chemistry and physics, the process of crystallization is omnipresent in nature and industry. It is the basis for the formation of snowflakes but also of certain active ingredients used in pharmacology. For the phenomenon to occur for a given substance, it must first go ...

University of Houston researcher pushes limit of when water will freeze

Gets a good look at tiny freezing water droplets

09-Dec-2021 - Though it is one of thegreat mysteries of science, the transformation of water into ice often escapes people's minds as it is justassumed that’swhat happens. But howand whyit happensis the subject of intensescrutinybyice scientists like Hadi Ghasemi,Cullen Associate Professor of ...

New insights into crystallisation processes

30-Nov-2021 - The better the results of the crystallisation process of materials can be controlled and predicted, the greater the chances of producing crystals that have specific characteristics and allow material properties to be optimised. Scientists at the Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung ...

Perovskite Solar Cells: Insights into early stages of structure formation

Colloidal chemistry of perovskite precursor solutions investigated

25-Jun-2021 - Using small-angle scattering at the PTB X-ray beamline of BESSY II, an HZB team was able to experimentally investigate the colloidal chemistry of perovskite precursor solutions used for solar cell production. The results contribute to the targeted and systematic optimization of the manufacturing ...