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IMAGE: (a) Modern cataylsts constist of nanoparticles; (b) A Rhodium tip as a model for a nanoparticle; (c) Tracing a chemical reaction in real time with a field emission microscope (d). view more
Credit: TU Wien
Most of commercial chemicals are produced using catalysts. Usually, these catalysts consist of tiny metal nanoparticles that are placed on an oxidic support. Similar to a cut diamond, whose surface consists of different facets oriented in different directions, a catalytic nanoparticle also possesses crystallographically different facets - and these facets can have different chemical properties.
Until now, these differences have often remained unconsidered in catalysis research because it is very difficult to simultaneously obtain information about the chemical reaction itself and about the surface structure of the catalyst. At TU Wien (Vienna), this has now been achieved by combining different microscopic methods: with the help of field electron micro
Credit: UrFU / Anastasia Farafontova
Scientists at the Ural Federal University (UrFU, Russia) have created clay bricks that are able to attenuate ionizing radiation to a level that is safe for the human body. To the composition of bricks scientists add waste from the industry, which protects against radiation. The article describing the technology was published in the journal
Applied Radiation and Isotopes. Bricks are a relatively cheap and convenient material with which we can quickly erect protective rooms, structures, walls around objects with radiation, says scientific head of the project, associate professor of the Department of Nuclear Power Plants and Renewable Energy Sources at UrFU Oleg Tashlykov. The bricks are alloyed with heavy metals - wastes from the metallurgical enterprises. These substances have pronounced radiation-protective properties. Thus, we solve two problems at once. First, by adding crushed absorbers of ionizing radiation to the matrix, in this case
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IMAGE: The Chirality memory effect of the ferromagnetic domain wall. The chirality of the helical spin structure is memorized in the ferromagnetic domain walls in the ferromagnetic state. view more
Credit: Tohoku University
Their research was published in the journal
Physical Review Letters on April 28, 2021.
Chirality is the lack of symmetry in matter. Human hands, for example, express chirality. A mirror image of your right hand differs from your left, giving it two distinguishable chiral states.
Chirality is an important issue in a myriad of scientific fields, ranging from high-energy physics to biology.
Within our bodies, some molecules, such as amino acids, show only one chiral state. In other words, they are homo-chiral. It is crucial to understand how this information is transferred and memorized.
Researchers from University Jena, the University of California Berkeley and the Institut Polytechnique de Paris use intense laser light in the XUV spectrum to generate second harmonics on a laboratory scale. As the team writes in Science Advances, they were able to achieve this effect for the first time with a laser source on a laboratory scale and thus investigate the surface of a titanium sample down to the atomic level.
Researchers in China, Japan, and Singapore were able to resume research much quicker than their counterparts in the US and Europe after the first covid lockdowns, results of a new international survey suggest.