What are those tiny spheres doing as they move across that slide? They're doing the breaststroke. Rice University scientists have discovered what may be the simplest form of locomotion in the travels of micron-scale particles linked and driven by a magnetic field. In the Rice lab of chemical and biomolecular engineer Sibani Lisa Biswal, researchers placed magnetised spheres of different sizes into a solution. When subjected to an "eccentric magnetic field", the spheres self-assembled ...

Scientists have discovered a novel chemical state, first proposed about 90 years ago, that enables a high-performance, low-cost sodium-ion battery. The battery could quickly and efficiently store and distribute energy produced by solar panels and wind turbines across the electrical grid. This direct proof of a previously unconfirmed charge state in a manganese-containing battery component could inspire new avenues of exploration for battery innovations. X-ray experiments at the US ...

With two billion people worldwide lacking access to clean and safe drinking water, joint research by Monash University, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) and the University of Texas at Austin, and published recently in 'Sciences Advances', may offer a breakthrough new solution. Sponge-like crystals can be used to capture, store and release chemical compounds It all comes down to metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), an amazing next generation ...

Rice University scientists who introduced laser-induced graphene (LIG) have enhanced their technique to produce what may become a new class of edible electronics. The Rice lab of chemist James Tour, which once turned Girl Scout cookies into graphene, is investigating ways to write graphene patterns onto food and other materials to quickly embed conductive identification tags and sensors into the products themselves. 'This is not ink' "This is not ink," Tour said. "This is taking ...

Thermoelectric devices, which can generate power when one side of the device is a different temperature from the other, have been the subject of much research in recent years. Now, a team at MIT has come up with a novel way to convert temperature fluctuations into electrical power. Instead of requiring two different temperature inputs at the same time, the new system takes advantae of the swings in ambient temperature that occur during the day-night cycle. No requirement for power ...

For quantum dot (QD) materials to perform well in devices such as solar cells, the nanoscale crystals in them need to pack together tightly so that electrons can hop easily from one dot to the next and flow out as current. MIT researchers have now made QD films in which the dots vary by just one atom in diameter and are organised into solid lattices with unprecedented order. Subsequent processing pulls the QDs in the film closer together, further easing the electrons’ pathway. Tests using ...