E-Mail
IMAGE: The environmental test chamber where researchers conducted air purifier experiments. (a) is the exterior with instruments set up outside, and (b) is inside the chamber with mock-up furnishings and materials.. view more
Credit: Illinois Tech
The market for air purifiers is booming, but a new study has found that some air cleaning technologies marketed for COVID-19 may be ineffective and have unintended health consequences.
The study, authored by researchers at Illinois Tech, Portland State University, and Colorado State University, found that cleaning up one harmful air pollutant can create a suite of others.
Both chamber and field tests found that an ionizing device led to a decrease in some volatile organic compounds (VOCs) including xylenes, but an increase in others, most prominently oxygenated VOCs (e.g., acetone, ethanol) and toluene, substances commonly found in paints, paint strippers, aerosol sprays and pesticides. According to the EPA, exposur
Researchers at MPI-CPfS have shown, through muon implantation experiments, that in Sr2RuO4 the onset of superconductivity causes spontaneous electrical currents to flow. They did this by showing that the onset of these currents splits from the main superconducting transition under uniaxial stress, which proves that it is a distinct transition, not a measurement artefact.
Researchers probe into the photocatalytic process on the titanium dioxide nanocrystals, finding that the process could be sensitive to the site of the reaction and the type of surface adsorbates. It shows the promise of surface engineering of maximizing photocatalytic efficiencies.
E-Mail
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. Joint Army- and Air Force-funded researchers have taken a step toward building a fault-tolerant quantum computer, which could provide enhanced data processing capabilities.
Quantum computing has the potential to deliver new computing capabilities for how the Army plans to fight and win in what it calls multi-domain operations. It may also advance materials discovery, artificial intelligence, biochemical engineering and many other disciplines needed for the future military; however, because qubits, the fundamental building blocks of quantum computers, are intrinsically fragile, a longstanding barrier to quantum computing has been effective implementation of quantum error correction.