Water films – the silent architects of chemical transformations

17-Oct-2023 - Air moisture landing on surfaces of materials forms thin, invisible, water films. These films play crucial roles in Earth’s soils and atmosphere as well as in new technologies. A thesis at Umeå University sheds new light on how this silent architect mediates chemical reactions. Water films are ...

Researchers harvest abundant clean energy from thin air, 24/7

“The air contains an enormous amount of electricity”

29-May-2023 - A team of engineers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has recently shown that nearly any material can be turned into a device that continuously harvests electricity from humidity in the air. The secret lies in being able to pepper the material with nanopores less than 100 nanometers in ...

Rust never sleeps

Chinks in iron crystals that can 'heal'

06-Feb-2019 - Like iron flowing through the blood stream, iron minerals course through the ground. These minerals are used to make steel and other metal alloys used in everything from cell phone components and cars to buildings, industrial equipment and infrastructure. Unfortunately, when exposed to oxygen and ...

Fluid-inspired material self-heals before your eyes

Coating for metals rapidly heals over scratches and scrapes to prevent corrosion

31-Jan-2019 - It's hard to believe that a tiny crack could take down a gigantic metal structure. But sometimes bridges collapse, pipelines rupture and fuselages detach from airplanes due to hard-to-detect corrosion in tiny cracks, scratches and dents. A Northwestern University team has developed a new coating ...

Water-repellent nanotextures found to have excellent anti-fogging abilities

03-Mar-2017 - Some insect bodies have evolved the abilities to repel water and oil, adhere to different surfaces, and eliminate light reflections. Scientists have been studying the physical mechanisms underlying these remarkable properties found in nature and mimicking them to design materials for use in ...

Water-resistant thanks to a biofilm

Mortar with an added bacterial film is highly resistant to water uptake

27-Jul-2016 - Moisture can destroy mortar over time – for example when cracks form as a result of frost. A team of scientists at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has found an unusual way to protect mortar from moisture: When the material is being mixed, they add a biofilm – a soft, moist substance ...

Structure of 'concrete disease' solved

09-Nov-2015 - Researchers from the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) teamed up with colleagues from the Swiss Materials Science Lab Empa to study a degenerative sign of ageing in concrete: the so-called alkali-aggregate reaction (AAR). In the course of AAR, a material forms that takes up more space than the ...

Color-coding sensor: Nanostructures for contactless control

25-Sep-2015 - Chemists at Ludwig-Maximilians-Univeristaet (LMU) in Munich have fabricated a novel nanosheet-based photonic crystal that changes color in response to moisture. The new material could form the basis for humidity-sensitive contactless control of interactive screens on digital devices. LMU chemists ...

Scientists develop new soil moisture sensor

Innovative measuring device enables the water content of biological soil crusts to be measured for the first time

15-Sep-2015 - Biological soil crusts comprising lichens, algae and mosses play an important role in the earth’s ecosystems. They fix carbon dioxide and nitrogen while giving off significant amounts of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide. Information on soil moisture is of vital importance to investigate their ...

Personal care products are possible sources of potentially harmful parabens for babies

17-Jan-2014 - Through lotions, shampoos and other personal care products (PCPs), infants and toddlers are likely becoming exposed to potentially harmful substances, called parabens, at an even higher level than adult women in the U.S., researchers have reported. They published their findings on parabens, which ...