Researchers have developed completely new nanowires by combining synthetic DNA and protein.

Through combining these two promising synthetic biological materials to form nanowires, the door to promising applications requiring biomaterials has been opened.

While both synthetic DNA and synthetic protein structures show great potential in the areas of direct delivery of cancer drugs and virus treatment customization, the hybridization of materials provides even more advantages.

“If your material is made up of several different kinds of components, it can have more functionality. For example, protein is very versatile; it can be used for many things, such as protein–protein interactions or as an enzyme to speed up a reaction. And DNA is easily programmed into nanostructures of a variety of sizes and shapes,” said first author of the study, Yun (Kurt) Mou.

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The fifth international ECS Electrochemical Energy Summit (E2S) will take place October 12-14, 2015 during the 228th ECS Meeting. This year’s program will be focused around solar critical issues and renewable energy. One of the invited talks is from the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis (JCAP).

JCAP is pioneering revolutionary methods of synthesizing transportation fuels simply by combining three of Earth’s most abundant resources: carbon dioxide, water, and sunlight.

The goal is to generate liquid hydrocarbon or alcohol fuel products whose heating value equals or exceeds that of methanol, using selective and efficient chemical pathways.

Achieving a Technological Breakthrough

Any technological breakthrough of this sort requires multiple simultaneous advances in mechanisms, materials, and components—from novel catalysts and protection coatings to concepts for self-sustaining integrated systems—and JCAP, under its five-year renewal project, will continue to act as a hub for accelerated discovery and integration of these developments.

The project’s first two years will focus on an accelerated campaign of discovery and development, while years three to five will see a ramped-up emphasis on the integration of JCAP’s materials, catalytic mechanisms, and testbeds with advances made by JCAP, in close consultation and collaboration with the broader scientific community and industry.

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A team from Rice University, led by assistant professor and ECS member Isabell Thomann, has demonstrate a highly efficient way to harness energy from the sun though the splitting of water molecules.

Through the configuration of light-activated gold nanoparticles, the team was able to successfully harvest and transfer energy to what the scientists refer to as “hot electrons.”

“Hot electrons have the potential to drive very useful chemical reactions, but they decay very rapidly, and people have struggled to harness their energy,” said Thomann. “For example, most of the energy losses in today’s best photovoltaic solar panels are the result of hot electrons that cool within a few trillionths of a second and release their energy as wasted heat.”

If the hot electrons could be capture before they have the opportunity to cool, society could be seeing a significant increase to energy conversion efficiencies.

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Researchers have developed a new family of luminescent materials with the ability detect chemical and biological compounds, and even respond accordingly to a wide variety of extreme mechanical and thermal conditions.

The material is essentially a metallic polymer gel comprised of earth elements.

This from MIT News:

The material, a light-emitting lanthanide metallogel, can be chemically tuned to emit light in response to chemical, mechanical, or thermal stimuli — potentially providing a visible output to indicate the presence of a particular substance or condition.

Read the full article here.

The bio-inspired polymers are predicted to help engineers derive design principles applicable to other kinds of materials.

By combining a rare-earth element with polyethylene glycol, the material gains qualities that allow it to produce tunable, multicolored light emissions. These emissions have the ability to detect subtle changes in the environment and reflect them accordingly.

By applying this material to structures, researchers believe that engineers may be able to catch structural weakness and eminent failure before it happens.

[Image: MIT]

PS: Want to learn more about luminescent materials? Check out our new focus issue, Novel Applications of Luminescent Optical Materials. All of the papers are free!

ECS Short Courses are all day instruction designed to provide students or the seasoned professional an in-depth education on a wide range of topics.

Register online today!

Five Short Courses will be offered on Sunday, October 11, 2015.

These small classes, taught by industry leaders, are an excellent opportunity to receive personalized instruction, helping both novices and experts advance their technical expertise and knowledge.

Short Course #1
Basic Impedance Spectroscopy
Mark Orazem, Instructor
This course is intended for chemists, physicists, materials scientists, and engineers with an interest in applying electrochemical impedance techniques to study a broad variety of electrochemical processes.

Short Course #2
Fundamentals of Electrochemistry: Basic Theory and Kinetic Methods
Jamie Noël, Instructor
This course covers the basic theory and application of electrochemical science. It is targeted toward people with a physical sciences or engineering background who have not been trained as electrochemists, but who want to add electrochemical methods to their repertoire of research approaches.

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Martin Winter of the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster will be awarded the 2015 Carl Wagner Memorial Award for his outstanding scientific work in fundamental or applied electrochemical science and technology.

Martin Winter has focused on R&D of new materials, components and cell designs for batteries and supercapacitors—in particular for lithium-ion batteries—for nearly 25 years. Currently, he holds a Chair for Applied Materials Science for Electrochemical Energy Storage and Conversion at the Institute of Physical Chemistry at Münster University, Germany.

Aside from his position at Münster University, Winter is the Director of the Münster Electrochemical Energy Technology (MEET) Battery Research Center. The center combines outstanding equipment with an international team of 140 scientists, engineers, and technicians. Winter has also been named Director of the new Helmholtz Institute Münster, as well as serving as an associate of the National Platform E-Mobility, where he consults the German chancellor and government.

Additionally, Winter is the head of the research council of the Battery Forum Germany, which advises the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research in the field of electrochemical energy storage. His strides in battery technology have yielded him much recognition, including ECS’s Battery Technology Award and the Research and Technology Award of the International Battery Materials Association.

The award will be presented at the 228th ECS Meeting in Phoenix, Arizona this October. Registration for this meeting is now open!

And take a look at Winter’s meeting abstract entitled, “Anodes for Lithium Ion Batteries Revisited: From Graphite to High-Capacity Alloying- and Conversion-Type Materials and Back Again.”

Do your old, damp coffee grounds have the potential to save the world? New research from the journal Nanotechnology states that the same coffee grounds you toss in the trash every day actually have the ability to store methane.

ECS Fellow Meyya Meyyappan and a team of researchers found that by combining the used coffee grounds with potassium hydroxide, a material with the ability to store substantial amounts of methane was created.

Coffee Grounds Fight Climate Change

In light of global warming and the damaging effects rising temperatures and increased greenhouse gas emissions have on the planet, the ability to store harmful methane is critical.

Methane is a preventable greenhouse gas that accounts for about 10 percent of all harmful emissions derived from human activity. While methane doesn’t stay in the atmosphere as long as the more commonly talked about carbon dioxide, it is far more devastating to the climate due to its extreme efficiency in absorbing heat. In fact, methane is about 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

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Photos and text by Galina Strukova and Gennady Strukov.

The beauty of these pictures is intriguing and fascinating by its asymmetric, exquisite and intricate pattern. What is it? Is it a product of a novel computer program or photographs of fine creations of nature? Neither statement is true. In fact, these are not pictures, but images of metal samples made with an electron microscope.

Only some color is added to the images to emphasize their resemblance to natural objects of our macroworld: seashells, jelly-fish, leaves of exotic plants. The size of the samples is from tens of micrometers to 1-2 millimeters. They are produced via self-organization of nano-sized (millionth of a millimeter) wires growing on porous membranes under the action of electric current pulses.

This is how such volumetric (3D) sculptures are described in scientific journals [1- 3] along with the experimental conditions for their reproduction, i.e., the conditions of the process (electrolyte composition, porous membrane, pulsed current mode) are specified, when growing nanowires organize themselves in an inexplicable fashion into “sculptures” that show perfect resemblance to natural creations. The authors have managed to isolate and photograph them with a modern electron microscope.

Besides, they have proved that the internal structure of this metallic “seashells” is a volumetric multilayer network woven by nano-sized wires. Such antenna-like samples are expected to find application in nanotechnology. Now we can produce such “sculptures” from various metals “by order”, examine them and admire their elegant forms and fascinating beauty. However, it is still a riddle. Why do they so closely resemble shells and leaves? Does this mysterious self-organization have anything in common with formation of plant leaves and seashells?

[1] J of Bionic Engineering 10 (2013) 368–376
[2] Materials Today 16 (2013) 98–99
[3] Materials Letters 128 (2014) 212-215

Here at ECS, we aim to stay on top of all the latest scientific discoveries and innovations around that world. That’s why we created the ECS Redcat Blog.

Our blog aims to provide the latest scientific news for the benefit of all interested. However, we can’t cover every event in the scientific community. Check out some of our other favorite science blogs below:

The Last Word On Nothing
Named after Victor Hugo’s quote, “Science says the first word on everything, and the last word on nothing,” this blog gathers together a vast array of science journalists to publish essays, informational articles, and more.

PLOS
PLOS, or the Public Library of Science, hosts a blog to keep you informed on the latest innovations and developments in science. Whether you’re trying to find out what’s on your dog’s mind or how climate change will shape the future, PLOS has the answers.

Live Science
One look at Live Science’s homepage and you get a glimpse into the biggest advancements in science today. Find the latest research coming out of academic institutes as well as the newest innovations in industry.

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The semiconducting silicon chip brought about a wave of electronic transformation the propelled technology and forever changed the way society functions. We now live in a digital world, where almost everything we encounter on a daily basis is comprised of a mass of silicon integrated circuits (IC) and transistors. But with the materials used to develop and improve these devices being pushed to their limits, the question of the future of electronics arises.

The Beginnings

The move towards a digital age really took flight late in 1947 at Bell Labs when a little device known as the transistor was developed. After this development, Gordon Moore became a pioneering research in the field of electronics and coined Moore’s law in 1965, which dictated that transistor density would double every two years.

Just over 50 years after that prediction, Moore’s law is still holding true. However, researchers and engineers are beginning to hit a bit of a roadblock. Current circuit measurement are coming in a 2nm wide—equating to a size roughly between a red blood cell and a single strand of DNA. Because the integrated circuits are hitting their limit in size, it’s becoming much more difficult to continue the projected growth of Moore’s law.

The question then arises of how do we combat this problem; or do we move toward finding an alternative to silicon itself? What are the true limits of technology?

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