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Categories: Chemistry: General, Energy: Technology

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It's a tough job, but someone's got to do it. In this case, the 'job' is the breakdown of lignin, the structural biopolymer that gives stems, bark and branches their signature woodiness. One of the most abundant terrestrial polymers on Earth, lignin surrounds valuable plant fibers and other molecules that could be converted into biofuels and other commodity chemicals -- if we could only get past that rigid plant cell wall.

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A new biosensor offers scientists the first dynamic glimpses of manganese, an elusive metal ion that is essential for life.

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A further development in atomic force microscopy now makes it possible to simultaneously image the height profile of nanometer-fine structures as well as the electric current and the frictional force at solid-liquid interfaces. A team has succeeded in analyzing electrocatalytically active materials and gaining insights that will help optimize catalysts. The method is also potentially suitable for studying processes on battery electrodes, in photocatalysis or on active biomaterials.

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A research team showed that the smell test SCENTinel 1.1 can successfully discriminate between different types of smell disorders. SCENTinel 1.1 can rapidly identify parosmia, the distorted perception of odors.

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One month after announcing a ferroelectric semiconductor at the nanoscale thinness required for modern computing components, a team has now demonstrated a reconfigurable transistor using that material. Their work paves the way for single amplifiers that can do the work of multiple conventional amplifiers, among other possibilities.

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Researchers report the creation of a superconducting material at both a temperature and pressure low enough for practical applications. In a new paper, the researchers describe a nitrogen-doped lutetium hydride that exhibits superconductivity at 69 degrees Fahrenheit and 10 kilobars (145,000 pounds per square inch, or psi) of pressure.

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Researchers are using glow-in-the-dark materials to enhance and improve rapid COVID-19 home tests.

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Researchers have developed a new 'camera' that sees the local disorder in materials. Its key feature is a variable shutter speed: because the disordered atomic clusters are moving, when the team used a slow shutter, the dynamic disorder blurred out, but when they used a fast shutter, they could see it. The method uses neutrons to measure atomic positions with a shutter speed of around one picosecond, a trillion times faster than normal camera shutters.

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Scientists have developed a polymer coating 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 more affordable and easy to manufacture.

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Scientists develop method for chemically modifying nanoscale tubes of carbon atoms, so they can host spinning electrons to serve as stable quantum bits in quantum technologies.

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Development of all-solid-state batteries is crucial to achieve carbon neutrality. However, their high surface resistance causes these batteries to have low output, limiting their applications. To this end, researchers have employed a novel technique to investigate and modulate electric double layer dynamics at the solid/solid electrolyte interface. The researchers demonstrate unprecedented control of response speed by over two orders of magnitude, a major steppingstone towards realization of commercial all-solid-state batteries.

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Researchers have developed a dual-purpose catalyst that purifies herbicide-tainted water while also producing hydrogen.

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Lithium-ion batteries dominate among energy storage devices and are the battery of choice for the electric vehicle industry. Improving battery performance is a constant impetus to current research in this field. Towards this end, a group of researchers has synthesized a lithium borate-type aqueous polyelectrolyte binder for graphite anodes. Their new binder helped improve Li-ion diffusion and lower impedance compared to conventional batteries.

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Researchers have developed a prototype for coral-reef-friendly sunscreens by using polymerization to create large molecules that still block UV radiation but are too big to penetrate our skin, coral, and algae. The polymeric UV filter was more effective at preventing sunburn in mice than existing sunscreens.

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Quantum effects can play an important role in chemical reactions. Physicists have now observed a quantum mechanical tunneling reaction in experiments. The observation can also be described exactly in theory. The scientists provide an important reference for this fundamental effect in chemistry. It is the slowest reaction with charged particles ever observed.

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Helium -- essential for many medical and industrial processes -- is in critically short supply worldwide. Production is also associated with significant carbon emissions, contributing to climate change. This study provides a new concept in gas field formation to explain why, in rare places, helium accumulates naturally in high concentrations just beneath the Earth's surface. The findings could help locate new reservoirs of carbon-free helium -- and potentially also hydrogen.

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The demand for vanillin vastly outstrips the natural resources of this flavoring agent. A chemical process is thus used to produce the required large quantities of vanillin from petroleum, which is far less expensive than obtaining the substance from fermented genuine vanilla pods. Another alternative is to make vanillin from lignin, a waste product of the wood pulping industry. A team has now managed to further enhance their method of electrochemical production of vanillin from lignin in that they employ a 'green' oxidation method for this purpose.

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Geoscientists have developed a cheap and environmentally friendly method for the synthesis of cerianite, a rare earth mineral which holds promise for the treatment of diseases associated with inflammation, including cancer.

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Certain diseases, including Alzheimer's, are currently considered 'undruggable' because traditional small molecule drugs can't interfere with the proteins responsible for the illnesses. But a new technique that specifically targets and breaks apart certain proteins -- rather than just interfering with them -- may offer a pathway toward treatment. Researchers have now designed a compound that targets and breaks down a post-translationally modified protein closely associated with Alzheimer's disease.

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Researchers have succeeded in producing very special catalysts, known as 'Lewis superacids', which can be used to break strong chemical bonds and speed up reactions. The production of these substances has, until now, proven extremely difficult. The chemists' discovery enables non-biodegradable fluorinated hydrocarbons, similar to Teflon, and possibly even climate-damaging greenhouse gases, such as sulphur hexafluoride, to be converted back into sustainable chemicals.