How scientists are accelerating chemistry discoveries with automation

New statistical-modeling workflow may help advance drug discovery and synthetic chemistry

12-Apr-2024 - A new automated workflow developed by scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has the potential to allow researchers to analyze the products of their reaction experiments in real time, a key capability needed for future automated chemical processes. The developed ...

Tiny microbes could brew big benefits for green biomanufacturing

The discovery could reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the manufacturing of fuels, drugs, and chemicals

15-May-2023 - Scientists find new route in bacteria to decarbonize industry. A research team led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and UC Berkeley has engineered bacteria to produce new-to-nature carbon products that could provide a powerful route to sustainable biochemicals. The advance ...

Electric vehicle batteries could get big boost with new polymer coating

Scientists enhance lithium-ion battery performance at the atomic level

10-Mar-2023 - Scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have developed a conductive polymer coating – called HOS-PFM – that could enable longer lasting, more powerful lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles. “The advance opens up a new approach to developing EV batteries that are ...

On the road to better solid-state batteries

A Berkeley Lab-led team designs next-gen batteries at the atomic level

28-Feb-2023 - A team from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and Florida State University has designed a new blueprint for solid-state batteries that are less dependent on specific chemical elements, particularly critical metals that are challenging to source due to supply chain issues. Their ...

Next generation solar fuels: How a record-breaking copper catalyst converts CO₂ into liquid fuels

Researchers have made real-time movies of copper nanoparticles as they evolve to convert carbon dioxide and water into renewable fuels and chemicals

21-Feb-2023 - Since the 1970s, scientists have known that copper has a special ability to transform carbon dioxide into valuable chemicals and fuels. But for many years, scientists have struggled to understand how this common metal works as an electrocatalyst, a mechanism that uses energy from electrons to ...

New compound that withstands extreme heat and electricity could lead to next-generation energy storage devices

Flexible polymers made with a new generation of the Nobel-winning “click chemistry” reaction find use in capacitors and other applications

17-Feb-2023 - Society’s growing demand for high-voltage electrical technologies – including pulsed power systems, cars and electrified aircraft, and renewable energy applications – requires a new generation of capacitors that store and deliver large amounts of energy under intense thermal and electrical ...

A cool new method of refrigeration

Researchers hope that ionocaloric cooling could someday help replace refrigerants with high global warming potential and provide safe, efficient cooling and heating for homes

06-Jan-2023 - Adding salt to a road before a winter storm changes when ice will form. Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have applied this basic concept to develop a new method of heating and cooling. The technique, which they have named “ionocaloric ...

Bacteria for blastoff: Using microbes to make supercharged new rocket fuel

Scientists have developed a new class of energy-dense biofuels based on one of nature’s most unique molecules

04-Jul-2022 - Converting petroleum into fuels involves crude chemistry first invented by humans in the 1800s. Meanwhile, bacteria have been producing carbon-based energy molecules for billions of years. Which do you think is better at the job? Well aware of the advantages biology has to offer, a group of ...

Crystallography for the misfit crystals

Advanced algorithms plus an exceptional X-ray laser can reveal the structures of not-so-neat-and-tidy materials unattainable by other techniques

24-Jan-2022 - Francis Crick, who famously co-discovered the shape of DNA, once said: “If you want to understand function, study structure.” Many decades later, this remains a tenet of biology, chemistry, and materials science. A key breakthrough in the quest for DNA’s structure came from X-ray crystallography, ...

New technique paves the way for perfect perovskites

22-Oct-2021 - An exciting new solar material called organic-inorganic halide perovskites could one day help the U.S. achieve its solar ambitions and decarbonize the power grid. One thousand times thinner than silicon, perovskite solar materials can be tuned to respond to different colors of the solar spectrum ...