2018 | U.S. DOE Office of Science (SC)

Sun-soaking Device Turns Water Into Superheated Steam

MIT engineers have built a device that soaks up enough heat from the sun to boil water and produce “superheated” steam hotter than 100 degrees Celsius, without any expensive optics.

Quantum Information Systems will Revolutionize Computing...as Soon as We Figure Out How to Make Them

A group of researchers led by Northeastern physicist Arun Bansil has received a $3.54 million grant from the Department of Energy to investigate new ways to design quantum information systems, which could revolutionize data encryption, enable new medical treatments, and more accurately model the changing climate.

UMass Engineers Make Crossbar Arrays of the Smallest Memristors

A research team at the University of Massachusetts Amherst says it has developed a promising building block for the next generation of nonvolatile random-access memory, artificial neural networks and bio-inspired computing systems.

Researcher Gets Grant To Study Materials Moving Through Tiny Spaces

Dr. Gangli Wang, professor of chemistry at Georgia State University, has received a three-year, $485,263 federal grant to study how nanostructured materials, or materials with hollow structures on the nanometer scale, affect how other substances pass through them.

UK Joins U.S. Department of Energy Battery Research Partnership

The University of Kentucky has been named a partner on a $120 million, five-year second phase of the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research (JCESR), a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Innovation Hub focused on advancing battery science and technology.

Solving a 75-Year-Old Mystery Might Provide a New Source of Farm Fertilizer

Thanks to a specialized X-ray source at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have confirmed the existence of a long-hypothesized interaction between nitrogen and titanium dioxide (TiO2) – a common photoactive material also known as titania – in the presence of light.

Faster-Charging, Safer Batteries

A team at the University of Delaware has patented an idea to improve battery performance by introducing tapers into the polymer membrane electrolytes that allow the lithium ions inside the battery to travel back and forth faster.

Major Natural Carbon Sink May Soon Become a Carbon Source

Peatlands in the Peruvian Amazon could soon start emitting carbon rather than soaking it up, according to a new study.

Switch-in-a-cell Electrifies Life

Rice synthetic biologists and their colleagues have developed protein switches that can be used to control the flow of electrons within cells. The synthetic proteins are one of the few remaining components needed to mimic entire electronic devices within cells.

Iowa State University Chemists use Abundant, Low-Cost and Non-Toxic Elements to Synthesize Semiconductors

Chemists at Iowa State University and Ames Lab have been working to produce semiconductors from materials that are safe, abundant and inexpensive to manufacture.

Key Biological Mechanism is Disrupted by Ocean Acidification

A team led by scientists from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego has demonstrated that the excess carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere through the combustion of fossil fuels interferes with the health of phytoplankton which form the base of marine food webs.

Simulate Today, Innovate Tomorrow: the Future of Materials Science

Stanford’s Evan Reed is at the forefront of a new class of materials scientists who dream up new materials with computer simulations.