ORNL tracks how halogen atoms compete to grow 'winning' perovskites

08-Apr-2016 - Researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have found a potential path to further improve solar cell efficiency by understanding the competition among halogen atoms during the synthesis of sunlight-absorbing crystals. Photovoltaic cells that convert sunlight directly ...

Bleach in the Icelandic Volcanic Cloud

Chlorine in the ash plume of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull attacked atmospheric trace gases

31-May-2011 - One year after the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland brought European air traffic to a standstill its ash plume revealed a surprising scientific finding: Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz found that the ash plume contained not only the common volcanic gas sulfur ...

Purdue-Stanford team finds radioactive decay rates vary with the sun's rotation

01-Sep-2010 - Radioactive decay rates, thought to be unique physical constants and counted on in such fields as medicine and anthropology, may be more variable than once thought. A team of scientists from Purdue and Stanford universities has found that the decay of radioactive isotopes fluctuates in synch with ...

Key compound of ozone destruction detected

26-Jul-2010 - For the first time, KIT scientists have successfully measured in the ozone layer the chlorine compound ClOOCl which plays an important role in stratospheric ozone depletion. The doubts in the established models of polar ozone chemistry expressed by American researchers based on laboratory ...

Cell phones that protect against deadly chemicals? Why not?

Crowdsourcing cell phones to detect chemicals

15-Apr-2010 - Do you carry a cell phone? Today, chances are it's called a "smartphone" and it came with a three-to-five megapixel lens built-in—not to mention an MP3 player, GPS or even a bar code scanner. This 'Swiss-Army-knife' trend represents the natural progression of technology—as chips become ...

White, but not pure

Scientists detect PCBs on America’s highest peak

10-Dec-2009 - Conception/Leipzig. Even the snow on Aconcagua Mountain in the Andes is polluted with PCBs. An international team of researchers detected low concentrations of these toxic, carcinogenic chlorine compounds in samples taken from America's highest mountain. The snow samples taken at an altitude of ...

Opto-electronic nose sniffs out toxic gases

15-Sep-2009 - Imagine a polka-dotted postage stamp that can sniff out poisonous gases or deadly toxins simply by changing colors. As reported in Nature Chemistry, Kenneth Suslick and his team at the University of Illinois have developed an artificial nose for the general detection of toxic industrial chemicals ...

Emerson Acquires Scientific Instruments Wet Chemistry Analyser Product Line

18-May-2009 - Emerson announced it has acquired the online wet chemistry analysers product line of Hawthorne, New York, USA based SI Industrial Instruments, Inc. (trading as Scientific Instruments) for use in the power and water treatment markets. The Scientific Instruments product line becomes part of Emerson ...

Discovery of ionic elemental crystal against chemical intuition

New phase of elemental boron discovered

02-Feb-2009 - An ETH Zurich researcher has developed a computational method for predicting the structure of materials. He used it to solve the structure of a newly synthesized form of pure boron that displays some unusual physical properties and brings a surprise: it is partially ionic. The new structure can ...

AkzoNobel finalizes acquisition of LII Europe activities

21-Jan-2009 - AkzoNobel has completed the acquisition of the business and assets of the German-based company LII Europe. The acquired activities will be integrated into AkzoNobel Industrial Chemicals. Financial details were not disclosed. LII Europe operates a multi-client chlorine cluster on the Hoechst ...