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New nanolithia cathodes may address technical drawbacks of Li-air batteries; scalable, cheap and safer Li-air battery system

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An international team from MIT, Argonne National Laboratory and Peking University has demonstrated a lab-scale proof-of-concept of a new type of cathode for Li-air batteries that could overcome the current drawbacks to the technology, including a high potential gap (>1.2 V) Nature Energy 1, Article number: 16111 doi: 10.1038/nenergy.2016.111.

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Miniscule Sensing Suite is a Big Step Towards Robotic Gnats

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In the late 1980s, Rod Brooks and Anita Flynn published a paper in The Journal of the British Interplanetary Society with the amazing title of Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control: A Robotic Invasion of the Solar System.

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Baker Institute expert suggests assumptions about oil’s influence on politics in the Middle East should be reversed

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Assumptions about oil’s influence on politics in the Middle East should be reversed, according to a new article from an expert at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. Instead of oil buttressing autocracy, the article argues that autocracy among oil exporters buttresses oil by encouraging consumption.

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Remembering the Legacy of Trailblazing Technologist Gordon Moore

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His original hypothesis, published in a 1965 Electronics magazine article , was that the number of transistors would double each year. From researcher to entrepreneur Moore received a bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 1950 from the University of California, Berkeley. His projection came true over the decade that followed.

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Polymer microcapsules with liquid carbonate cores and silicone shells offer a new approach to carbon capture

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The team, led by scientists from Harvard University and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, employed a microfluidic assembly technique to produce microcapsules that contain liquid sorbents encased in highly permeable polymer shells. Hardin IV of Harvard University; and Elizabeth Glogowski of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

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Sandia team boosts hydrogen production activity by molybdenum disulfide four-fold; low-cost catalyst for solar-driven water splitting

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The idea was to understand the changes in the molecular structure of molybdenum disulfide, so that it can be a better catalyst for hydrogen production: closer to platinum in efficiency, but earth-abundant and cheap. Molly is dirt cheap and abundant. —co-author Jeff Brinker, Sandia Fellow and University of New Mexico professor.

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Researchers Model Hydrogenase Active Sites to Create Synthetic Catalyst for Hydrogen Production

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Chemists at the University of Illinois have described a catalyst that acts like nature’s most pervasive hydrogen processor by creating a model of the active site found in iron-iron hydrogenase and nickel-iron hydrogenase. Soc. , , Article ASAP doi: 10.1021/ja902570u. Matthew Whaley, Thomas B. Rauchfuss and Danielle L.

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