News by Subject Chemistry & Physics

Organic molecules with atoms of the semi-metal boron are important building blocks for synthesis products to produce drugs and agricultural chemicals. However, the conversion of substances commonly used in industry often results in the loss of the valuable boron unit, which can replace another atom in a molecule. Chemists at Münster University now introduce carbon-carbon couplings in which the boron atom is retained. The study has been published in the journal Chem.

Concerns about the scarcity of lithium and other materials necessary in the now-ubiquitous lithium-ion batteries have recently driven many researchers to look for alternatives, such as sodium and potassium. Prof Shinichi Komaba from Tokyo University of Science, Japan, and his team have worked for over a decade on this topic. In his latest review article, he extensively discusses his findings on the recent advances, promises, and limitations of potassium-ion batteries.

MIT engineers have developed a method to produce aerospace-grade composites without the enormous ovens and pressure vessels. The technique may help to speed up the manufacturing of airplanes and other large, high-performance composite structures, such as blades for wind turbines.

A team of chemists at McMaster University has discovered an innovative way to break down and dissolve the rubber used in automobile tires, a process which could lead to new recycling methods that have so far proven to be expensive, difficult and largely inefficient.

In a circular economy the city waste being turned into resources, is of great importance considering more than 70% of the inhabitants in Europe live in urban areas. The European project RES URBIS (Resources from Urban Bio-waste), showed that different biowaste produced in an urban environment can be treated within the same chain of valorisation and can obtain products with biological origins, such as bioplastic, with a higher economic value to the classic compost and biogas.