New procedure for better thermoplastics

New insights thanks to nano imaging and spectroscopy at the IRIS beamline of BESSY II

06-Nov-2024 - Bio-based thermoplastics are produced from renewable organic materials and can be recycled after use. Their resilience can be improved by blending bio-based thermoplastics with other thermoplastics. However, the interface between the materials in these blends sometimes requires enhancement to ...

Frozen noble gas in the accelerator

29-May-2024 - Researchers at European XFEL in Schenefeld near Hamburg have taken a closer look at the formation of the first crystallisation of nuclei in supercooled liquids. They found: The formation starts much later than previously assumed. The findings could help to better understand the creation of ice in ...

Fondant under the magnifying glass

New insights into the properties of sweet coating: The results could be used to optimize the industrial production process in the future

04-Sep-2023 - For many, the german sweet "Amerikaner" - a pastry with a sweet, whitish coating - is a childhood memory at the bakery. But there's a lot of physics and chemistry in the frosting. A team led by Thomas Vilgis at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, together with colleagues from the ...

Nanometre gaps can crystallise liquids

X-ray examination shows surprising coexistence of liquid and crystalline form

14-May-2019 - Very narrow gaps make liquids crystallise partially. X-ray investigations at DESY show that in gaps just a few molecule diameters wide both, liquid and crystal properties of a material can exist at the same time. The observation of this coexistence is important for all liquids in very small ...

Detailed structure of cell’s garbage disposal unit reveals surprise in how it is targeted by cancer drugs

Every atom counts

08-Aug-2016 - Malignant cancer cells not only proliferate faster than most healthy cells in our bodies. They also generate more “junk”, such as faulty and damaged proteins. This makes cancer cells inherently more dependent on the most important cellular garbage disposal unit, the proteasome, which degrades ...

Scientists X-ray chocolate

08-May-2015 - An X-ray study carried out at DESY allows to improve the quality of chocolate. The study offers new insights into the formation of fat bloom, an unwelcome white layer that occasionally forms on chocolate. "Although fat blooming is perfectly harmless, it causes millions in damage to the food ...