University Research | U.S. DOE Office of Science (SC)

A Sweeter Way to Make Green Products

A research team led by Basudeb Saha at University of Delaware’s Catalysis Center for Energy Innovation, a DOE Energy Frontier Research Center, has invented a new process that could make forest and farm waste a cheaper, sustainable alternative to the petroleum used in manufacturing thousands of products.

Newly Discovered Semiconductor Dynamics May Help Improve Energy Efficiency

Researchers examining the flow of electricity through semiconductors have uncovered another reason these materials seem to lose their ability to carry a charge as they become more densely “doped.”

Making Better Material for Fuel Cells

University of Delaware researchers make material to make fuel cells more durable and less expensive.

UCLA Physicists Propose New Theories of Black Holes from the Very Early Universe

‘Primordial black holes,’ believed to have formed shortly after the Big Bang, might explain how gold, platinum and uranium are created.

Rice U. Solubility Study Could Impact Energy, Biology, Environment

Rice University chemical engineers have used the most realistic computer model yet devised to simulate the precise atomic and molecular interactions that come into play when water mixes with alkanes, a family of hydrocarbons that includes methane, propane and other products refined from petroleum and natural gas, such as paraffin.

Amorphous Diamond Synthesized

A team of Carnegie high-pressure physicists have created a form of carbon that’s hard as diamond, but amorphous, meaning it lacks the large-scale structural repetition of a diamond’s crystalline structure.

ASU Team Shines New Light on Photosynthesis

A team of scientists from ASU’s School of Molecular Sciences and Pennsylvania State University has taken us a step closer to unlocking the secrets of photosynthesis, and possibly to cleaner fuels.

Coral Skeletons May Resist the Effects of Acidifying Oceans

New research from Pupa Gilbert, a professor of physics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, provides evidence that at least one species of coral, Stylophora pistillata, and possibly others, build their hard, calcium carbonate skeletons faster, and in bigger pieces, than previously thought.

The Glass Transition Caught in the Act

Changes in a liquid as it becomes a glass are related to repulsion between its atoms as they are crowded together. Although scientists have long believed the poorly understood glass transition must have atomic underpinnings, this is the first time they have been demonstrated experimentally.

Purdue Researchers Explore New Chapter of Physics

Purdue University professor Alexandra Boltasseva works with optical metamaterials to create tiny objects: nanotweezers, metasurfaces, and other nanostructures, and studies light interaction in both natural materials and new metamaterials, such as transparent conducting oxides and transition metal nitrides.

Cyborg Bacteria Turn Into Tiny, Zero-Waste Solar Panels

To help humans capture more of the sun’s energy than natural photosynthesis can, UC Berkeley scientists have taught bacteria to cover themselves in tiny, highly efficient solar panels to produce useful chemical compounds.

New Computational Model of Chemical Building Blocks May Help Explain the Origins of Life

A research team from the Stony Brook University Laufer Center for Physical and Quantitative Biology and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have developed a computational model explaining how certain molecules fold and bind together to grow longer and more complex, leading from simple chemicals to primitive biological molecules.