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IMAGE: Mole fraction along the reaction time (s) calculated by the reactor simulation. The inlet gas consisted of CH4, O2, and He (as inert gas). The total pressure was set to. view more
Credit: Atsushi Ishikawa
Japanese researchers have developed a simulation method to theoretically estimate the performance of heterogeneous catalyst by combining first-principles calculation (1) and kinetic calculation techniques. Up to now, simulation studies mainly focused on a single or limited number of reaction pathways, and it was difficult to estimate the efficiency of a catalytic reaction without experimental information.
Atsushi Ishikawa, Senior Researcher, Center for Green Research on Energy and Environmental Materials, National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), performed computation of reaction kinetic information from first-principles calculations based on quantum mechanics, and developed methods and programs to carry out kinetic simulations without using exp
Twistoptics--A new way to control optical nonlinearity eurekalert.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from eurekalert.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Power/Performance Bits: March 2
Fast-charging EV battery; DNA origami nanowires; tiling nanosheets.
Fast-charging EV battery
Electric vehicle adoption faces challenges from consumers’ range anxiety and the extended lengths of time needed to charge a car’s battery. Researchers at Pennsylvania State University are trying to address this by developing lithium iron phosphate EV batteries that have a range of 250 miles with the ability to charge in 10 minutes. It also is expected to have a lifetime 2 million miles.
“We developed a pretty clever battery for mass-market electric vehicles with cost parity with combustion engine vehicles,” said Chao-Yang Wang, chair of mechanical engineering, professor of chemical engineering, professor of materials science and engineering, and director of the Electrochemical Engine Center at Penn State. “There is no more range anxiety and this battery is affordable.”
Credit: Microwave Nano-Electronics Lab, UC Riverside.
RIVERSIDE, Calif. Materials having excess electrons are typically conductors. However, moiré patterns interference patterns that typically arise when one object with a repetitive pattern is placed over another with a similar pattern can suppress electrical conductivity, a study led by physicists at the University of California, Riverside, has found.
In the lab, the researchers overlaid a single monolayer of tungsten disulfide (WS
2) on a single monolayer of tungsten diselenide (WSe
2) and aligned the two layers against each other to generate large-scale moiré patterns. The atoms in both the WS
2 and WSe
Reprinted (adapted) with permission from ACS Nano 14, 15216 (2020). Copyright 2020 American Chemical Society
Scientists at Japan’s Nagoya University and the National Institute for Materials Science have found that a simple one-drop approach is cheaper and faster for tiling functional nanosheets together in a single layer. If the process, described in the journal
ACS Nano, can be scaled up, it could advance development of next-generation oxide electronics.
“Drop casting is one of the most versatile and cost-effective methods for depositing nanomaterials on a solid surface,” says Nagoya University materials scientist Minoru Osada, the study’s corresponding author. “But it has serious drawbacks, one being the so-called coffee-ring effect: a pattern left by particles once the liquid they are in evaporates. We found, to our great surprise, that controlled convection by a pipette and a hotplate causes uniform deposition rather than the ring-like pattern, suggesting a new pos