Water treatment: nanotubes capture steroid hormones

Removal of micropollutants in electrochemical membrane reactor with carbon nanotube membrane

11-Nov-2024 - Supplying people around the world with clean water is one of the major challenges of the present and future. Wastewater contains various micropollutants, i.e. organic and inorganic substances that occur in low concentrations but still have a harmful effect on humans and the environment. ...

Adhesive Comes Unglued on Command

Oxidation triggers debonding of mussel-inspired adhesive

23-Sep-2024 - Modern integrated microelectronic devices are often poorly repairable and difficult to recycle. Debondable adhesives play a key role in the transition to a circular economy with sustainable resources, less waste, and intelligent repair/recycling strategies. In the journal Angewandte Chemie, a ...

Highly increased oxidation potentials due to adapted solvents

Scientists have succeeded in significantly increasing the oxidation potential of classic reagents.

16-Aug-2024 - NO+ dissolved in various fluorobenzenes. The more hydrogen atoms are replaced by fluorine atoms, the lower the interaction of the cations with the electrons and the less colored the solution. Photo and graphic: Dr. Malte Sellin A team of scientists led by Prof. Dr. Ingo Krossing, Professor of ...

From waste to value: The right electrolytes can enhance glycerol oxidation

"Our research could help to convert biomass by-products into valuable chemicals more efficiently"

03-Jul-2024 - When biomass is converted into biodiesel, huge amounts of glycerol are produced as a by-product. So far, however, this by-product has been little utilised, even though it could be processed into more valuable chemicals through oxidation in photoelectrochemical reactors. The reason for this: low ...

Fuel Cells: Oxidation processes of phosphoric acid revealed by tender X-rays

Options for increasing the lifetime and efficiency of fuel cells

05-Apr-2024 - The interactions between phosphoric acid and the platinum catalyst in high-temperature PEM fuel cells are more complex than previously assumed. Experiments at BESSY II with tender X-rays have decoded the multiple oxidation processes at the platinum-electrolyte interface. The results indicate that ...

Stronger than Nature: Optimised Radicals as Potential Novel Catalysts

Research team redesigns phenoxyl radicals with improved oxidation capacity in the lab

18-Mar-2024 - Nature uses enzymes for various metabolic processes. These biological catalysts are extremely efficient. Biomimetic catalysts based on inexpensive starting materials from the laboratory that can reproduce the efficiency of the natural enzymes and can function at ambient conditions are therefore ...

Molecular manganese complex as superphotooxidant

Scientists developed a new molecular system made from the abundant element manganese for photooxidations

13-Feb-2024 - Highly reducing or oxidizing photocatalysts are a fundamental challenge in photochemistry. Only a few transition metal complexes with Earth-abundant metal ions have so far advanced to excited state oxidants, including chromium, iron, and cobalt. All these photocatalysts require high energy light ...

Two conductors of a chemical reaction

Watching the reaction live

22-Nov-2023 - For the first time, researchers at TU Wien have successfully observed the operating principle of so-called promoters in a catalytic reaction in real-time. These promoters play an important role in technology, but so far there is only limited understanding of how they work. Catalysts are essential ...

How lab-made catalysts can help to get a grip on difficult greenhouse gases

09-Nov-2023 - Natural gas consists of light hydrocarbons such as methane and ethane. Such gases are more potent greenhouse gases than CO2, are constantly released into the atmosphere from natural gas wells, and are more difficult to store than, for example, their corresponding alcohols (methanol and ethanol, ...

Researchers to engineer synthetic anaerobic bacteria to capture, convert methane

“We want to stop releasing methane and start harnessing it and do so in lieu of burning it”

06-Oct-2022 - Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that is 25 times more damaging to the environment per molecule than carbon dioxide, according to theU.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Bacteria at the bottom of the sea can remove methane from their surroundings, entirely without oxygen, through a process ...