2017 | U.S. DOE Office of Science (SC)

How Seawater Strenthens Ancient Roman Concrete

University of Utah geologist Marie Jackson studies the minerals and microscale structures of Roman concrete as she would a volcanic rock. She and her colleagues have found that seawater filtering through the concrete leads to the growth of interlocking minerals that lend the concrete added cohesion.

Flexible Flagella Fight Flow: Bacteria Change a Liquid’s Properties and Escape Entrapment

A new study by researchers at Penn State University used mathematical models to understand how bacteria with flagella -- a collection of spinning hairs used for propulsion that act together like a tail -- overcome forces from the flow of a liquid and navigate complex environments.

Scientists Produce Dialysis Membrane Made from Graphene

MIT engineers have fabricated a functional dialysis membrane from a sheet of graphene — a single layer of carbon atoms, linked end to end in hexagonal configuration like that of chicken wire.

Peanut Family Secret for Making Chemical Building Blocks Revealed

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have discovered the structure of a new plant enzyme, one which could be a useful tool to biotechnologists trying to control the production of tyrosine and its derivatives.

Cellulosic Biofuels Can Benefit the Environment If Managed Correctly

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy-funded Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC) believe cellulosic biofuels – or liquid energy derived from grasses and wood – could become a green fuel of the future, providing an environmentally sustainable way of meeting energy needs.

Ruthenium Rules for New Fuel Cells

Rice University scientists have fabricated a durable catalyst for high-performance fuel cells by attaching single ruthenium atoms to graphene.

Nanostructures Detect Colors

Engineers at Caltech have for the first time developed a light detector that combines two disparate technologies—nanophotonics, which manipulates light at the nanoscale, and thermoelectrics, which translates temperature differences directly into electron voltage—to distinguish different wavelengths of light, including both visible and infrared wavelengths, at high resolution.

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Research Accelerates Quest for Quicker, Longer-Lasting Electronics

Jing Shi, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of California, Riverside, and colleagues at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Arizona State University report they have created a TI film just 25 atoms thick that adheres to an insulating magnetic film, creating a “heterostructure.”

Bacterial Organizational Complexities Revealed

For the first time, scientists at Michigan State University have visualized the fine details of bacterial microcompartment shells – the organisms’ submicroscopic nanoreactors, which are comprised completely of protein.

UW Entrepreneurial Pipeline Lands Lactic Solutions in Biofuels Marketplace

When Jim Steele thinks back over the last seven years, from the early research on biofuels, followed by a dream of moving Lactic Solutions LLC technology to the marketplace, and now the acquisition of the company by Lallemand Biofuels & Distilled Spirits (a unit of Lallemand Inc.) last month, he is thankful for the network of UW–Madison entrepreneurial experts.

Virginia Tech Researchers Discover Potentially Harmful Airborne Nanoparticles Produced Through Burning of Coal

Environmental scientists led by the Virginia Tech College of Science have discovered that the burning of coal produces incredibly small particles of a highly unusual form of titanium oxide.

Creating a Sustainable Earth: Batteries Included

Esther Takeuchi of Brookhaven National Lab and Stony Brook University –- who is credited with more than 150 U.S. patents and developed the battery technology that implanted cardiac defibrillators employ today — is directing a U.S. Department of Energy $10 million Energy Frontier Research Center award on innovative battery systems.