News by Subject Chemistry & Physics

Researchers at Tokyo Institute of Technology have developed a ruthenium-based perovskite catalyst that shows strong activity even at low temperatures (down to 313 K). The reusable catalyst does not require additives, meaning that it can prevent the formation of toxic by-products. The oxidation of sulfides is a commercially important process with broad applications ranging from chemicals production to environmental management.

For decades, Texas A&M University chemist Dr. John A. Gladysz has been mixing metals and carbon to create novel molecules, from the world's longest molecular wires to microscopic gyroscopes controllable by cage size, molecular access and even progress toward unidirectional rotation via external electrical field manipulation.

A group of researchers from Aalto University in Finland and Sun Yat-sen University in China provide a standardized approach to improve the accuracy and reliability of contact angle measurements of surfaces.

New work from a team led by Carnegie's Alexander Goncharov confirms that nitrogen, the dominant gas in Earth's atmosphere, becomes a metallic fluid when subjected to the extreme pressure and temperature conditions found deep inside the Earth and other planets.

Physicists working with Roland Wester at the University of Innsbruck have investigated if and how chemical reactions can be influenced by targeted vibrational excitation of the reactants. They were able to demonstrate that excitation with a laser beam does not affect the efficiency of a chemical exchange reaction and that the excited molecular group acts only as a spectator in the reaction.

A Chinese research team announced it has successfully metallized nitrogen at extreme conditions. The team, working at the Institute of Solid State Physics at the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science (CASHIPS), developed its own pulsed-laser heating system and ultra-fast optical detection technology to conduct the experiment.

A team of physicists from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Stanford University and Europe has captured the clearest glimpse yet of a photochemical reaction -- the type of light-fueled molecular transformations responsible for photosynthesis, vision and the ozone layer. Appearing in the June 6 edition of the journal Science, the team's study marks the culmination of a years-long effort to advance the quality of 'molecular movies' from that of a rudimentary stop-motion animation to a high-definition motion picture.