Latest Chemistry News

Microbe That Can Handle Ionic Liquids
Monday, May 14, 2012 - 18:45

In the search for technology by which economically competitive biofuels can be produced from cellulosic biomass, the combination of sugar-fermenting microbes and ionic liquid solvents looks to be a winner save for one major problem: the ionic liquids used to make cellulosic biomass more digestible for microbes can also be toxic to them. A solution to this conundrum, however, may be in the offing.

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"Dip Chip" Technology Tests Toxicity On-the-Go
Monday, May 14, 2012 - 11:47

From man-made toxic chemicals such as industrial by-products to poisons that occur naturally, a water or food supply can be easily contaminated. And for every level of toxic material ingested, there is some level of bodily response, ranging from minor illness to painful certain death.

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Michigan Tech Researcher Using Nanoclays to Build Better Asphalt
Friday, May 4, 2012 - 13:05

“Nanoclay-Modified Asphalt Materials: Preparation and Characterization” reviews recent literature on asphalt that has been doctored with nanomaterials. It also presents new discoveries from You’s team suggesting that adding nanoclays to asphalt materials could make for safer, longer-lasting roadways.

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At Smallest Scale, Liquid Crystal Behavior Portends New Materials
Wednesday, May 2, 2012 - 12:30

Liquid crystals, the state of matter that makes possible the flat screen technology now commonly used in televisions and computers, may have some new technological tricks in store. In the journal Nature, an international team of researchers led by University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering Juan J. de Pablo reports the results of a computational study that shows liquid crystals, manipulated at the smallest scale, can unexpectedly induce the molecules they interact with to self-organize in ways that could lead to entirely new classes of materials with new properties.
 

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Chemical Engineers Discover a High-Yield Method for Producing Everyday Plastics from Biomass
Monday, April 30, 2012 - 15:54

A team of chemical engineers led by Paul J. Dauenhauer of the University of Massachusetts Amherst has discovered a new, high-yield method of producing the key ingredient used to make plastic bottles from biomass. The process is inexpensive and currently creates the chemical p-xylene with an efficient yield of 75-percent, using most of the biomass feedstock, Dauenhauer says. The research is published in the journal ACS Catalysis.

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Berkeley Lab Researchers Direct the Self-Assembly of Gold Nanoparticles into Device-Ready Thin films
Friday, April 27, 2012 - 14:18

Scientists with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley have directed the first self-assembly of nanoparticles into device-ready materials. Through a relatively easy and inexpensive technique based on blending nanoparticles with block co-polymer supramolecules, the researchers produced multiple-layers of thin films from highly ordered one-, two- and three-dimensional arrays of gold nanoparticles.

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