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Category: chemistry

Water-splitting catalyst unlocks cheaper hydrogen at significantly lower temperatures

University of Birmingham research published today has shown a new low-temperature method for producing hydrogen that is suitable for both centralized hydrogen production, and also local generation using waste heat from large-scale industrial plants.

Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe and is a clean and environmentally friendly energy carrier. Unlike fossil fuels, which produce harmful emissions and carbon dioxide, it produces only heat and water on combustion and can also power fuel cells that produce electricity. But while hydrogen is carbon-free at the point of use, 95% of current production relies on fossil fuels.

Thermochemical splitting, where a catalyst splits water into hydrogen and oxygen, is emerging as a promising method for hydrogen production. However, current catalysts split water at 700‑1000oC and need temperatures between 1,300 and 1500oC to regenerate between cycles of water-splitting.

Three billion years ago, Earth’s life relied on a rare metal

A collaborative team of scientists has discovered that life on Earth over three billion years ago relied on the metal molybdenum, which was incredibly scarce in the environment at the time. The study, published in Nature Communications, is the first to show that molybdenum was used by ancient life this far back in our planet’s history.

On Earth today, molybdenum helps speed up vital biochemical reactions in cells. The metal is a component of essential enzymes that drive several major biological reactions in organisms. This is not only important for individual organisms, but also biogeochemical cycles, such as the nitrogen cycle, which affect our entire planet. Without molybdenum, those important reactions could still happen in nature, but they would be too slow to sustain life.

“Molybdenum sits at the catalytic center of enzymes that run major carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur reactions,” explained Betül Kaçar, head of the Kaçar Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and senior author on the study. Kaçar leads MUSE, a NASA Interdisciplinary Consortia for Astrobiology Research (ICAR) at UW-Madison.

Chemistry-aware AI can generate millions of plausible new molecules

Finding and developing new molecules is one of the great research endeavors of modern chemistry. From the development of new drugs to the creation of more sustainable materials, everything depends on finding new combinations of atoms with useful properties. Now, a research team from the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV) has developed an artificial intelligence tool capable of generating millions of new molecules which, although still unknown to science, comply with the laws of chemistry and could therefore be realistic possibilities. The research results have been published in the journal Nature Machine Intelligence.

The system, called CoCoGraph, works in a similar way to generative artificial intelligence tools for text or images, such as ChatGPT or Dall-E. “These models create new content that looks very much like the real thing. Our algorithm does the same, but with molecules,” explains Roger Guimerà, an ICREA Research Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the URV.

Unlike other AI tools, however, the model does not yet respond to specific instructions. For the moment it simply carries out the more basic task of generating plausible molecules, that is, structures that comply with the rules of chemistry.

AI-powered lab discovers brighter lead-free nanomaterials in 12 hours

A new autonomous laboratory recently navigated through billions of potential material synthesis recipes to identify brighter, lead-free light-emitting nanomaterials in just 12 hours. The work could accelerate development of safer light-emitting nanoplatelets for use in applications ranging from photodetectors to the production of fuel from solar energy. A paper describing this work appears in Nature Communications.

Nanoplatelets are sheet-like crystals only billionths of a meter thick; in this case, they belong to a family of lead-free “double perovskites,” materials whose atomic recipe can be tuned to control how they absorb and emit light.

“One of the big challenges in developing safer optical nanomaterials is the sheer size of the material universe,” says Milad Abolhasani, Alcoa Professor and University Faculty Scholar in the department of chemical and biomolecular engineering at North Carolina State University. Abolhasani is the corresponding author of the research.

Webb Telescope Reveals Dark Surface of Exoplanet LHS 3844b

Sebastian Zieba: “Since LHS 3,844 b lacks such a silicate crust, one may conclude that Earth-like plate tectonics does not apply to this planet, or it is ineffective. This planet likely only contains little water.”

What do the surfaces of rocky exoplanets look like? This is what a recent study published in Nature Astronomy hopes to address as a team of scientists investigated how heat measurements could be used to ascertain the potential physical and chemical properties of a rocky nearby rocky exoplanet. This study has the potential to help scientists use new methods for studying rocky exoplanets, as they are still too far away to be directly observed.

For the study, the researchers used NASA’s powerful James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to observe the rocky exoplanet LHS 3,844 b, which is located approximately 49 light-years from Earth and whose mass and radius is estimated to be almost 2.5 and 1.3 times of Earth, respectively. LHS 3,844 b orbits inside the interior edge of its star’s habitable zone, making it analog to Mercury. To accomplish this, the researchers used JWST to obtain heat measurements of LHS 3,844 b to ascertain the exoplanet’s potential physical, geological, and chemical properties.

In the end, the researchers found that LHS 3,844 b is likely comprised of a dark, volcanic surface that’s been weathered by space radiation. The team notes that LHS 3,384 b either has a fresh surface or mimics the Moon or Mercury, the latter of which ceased volcanic activity billions of years ago. The team was also able to potentially rule out a distinct geological characteristic that Earth possesses.

Human DNA-PKcs promotes broken DNA-end structure independence during NHEJ

Whether DNA-PKcs is necessary for non-homologous end joining has been biochemically obscure. Through optimization of reaction conditions, Fujii and Modesti show that DNA-PKcs plays a constructive role, which leads to indistinguishable repair efficiencies between cohesive-end and blunt-end DNA substrates.

PCB prices have risen by up to 40% due to war in Iran, according to Reuters’ industry sources

According to “industry sources and executives” known to Reuters, the war in Iran is affecting the supply of materials that are crucial for Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs), which has made them shoot up in price. Reuters says that, cccording to Goldman Sachs, PCB prices in April shot up by as much as 40% since March.

According to the news agency, “Iran struck Saudi Arabia’s Jubail petrochemical complex in early April, forcing a halt in production of high-purity polyphenylene ether (PPE) resin—a critical base material used to ⁠manufacture PCB laminates.”

Redox chemistry of early Earth and the origin of life

Redox reactions played an important role in shaping the conditions that enabled the emergence of life on the early Earth, but how these relate to specific environmental conditions and whether they led to heterotroph or autotroph organisms remains a matter of debate. In this Review, the authors summarize and discuss evidence reconciling dominant theories — from the redox nature of the Hadean atmosphere and the presence of conditions that could have supported both heterotrophs and chemoautotrophs, to the transport of organic compounds that could have led to the emergence of life in multiple local environments.

Explosive evaporation unlocks new possibilities in 3D printing and chemical analysis

Water droplets might seem simple at first. But when nearing evaporation, a desperate power struggle of competing physical forces can emerge, with explosive effects. In a Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences publication, researchers have taken a closer look at the physics of charged water droplets on frictionless surfaces, observing spontaneous jets of microdroplet emissions. Their insights may open new opportunities in nanoscale fabrication and electrospray ionization.

Professor Dan Daniel, head of the Droplet and Soft Matter Unit at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) says, “From raindrops to spray coatings, mass spectrometry to microfluidics, sneezes to spacecraft plumes, charged droplets can show up in a surprising wealth of settings. Our observations enable new physical understanding of evaporating charged droplets, with a range of potential industrial applications.”

Mechanochemistry simplifies synthesis of challenging conductive organic molecules

Mechanochemistry is a growing field for chemical reactions that proceed in the solid state in the absence, or with minuscule amounts, of solvent added. For decades, solvents have been considered conventional for the progression of modern chemistry; nonetheless, researchers are increasingly demonstrating that mechanochemistry can synthesize complex molecules more effectively. With more progress, mechanochemistry could alleviate solvent-related environmental and financial burdens in chemical industries.

Using mechanochemistry, researchers from Nagoya University, including Koya M. Hori, Yoshifumi Toyama, and Hideto Ito successfully developed a two-step synthetic method for dihydrodinaphthopentalenes (DHDPs), conductive organic molecules that are considerably challenging to synthesize. These findings were recently published in the journal RSC Mechanochemistry on February 5, 2026. The results are expected to advance the synthesis of compounds with applications in organic materials.

Conductive organic molecules are used in increasingly essential technologies such as OLEDs in smartphone screens, solar cells for renewable energy, anti-static polymer coatings, and more. Perhaps due to their complex and expensive synthesis, however, DHDPs have not been integrated into any commercialized products.

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