Harvey Runoff Menaces Texas’ Coral Reefs
The more than 13 trillion gallons of floodwater from Hurricane Harvey have created a massive plume of freshwater in the Gulf of Mexico that is threatening the coral reefs of the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary about 100 miles offshore of Galveston. Harvey produced more than 13 trillion gallons of rain over southeast Texas,…
Nerve Cells’ Gatekeepers Take Many Forms
The ability to track the movements of single molecules has revealed how proteins on the surface of nerve cells control gates that turn chemical signals into electrical signals. The finding is a step forward in detailing mechanisms involved in neurological disease, according to researchers at Rice University and the University of Texas Health Science Center…
New Test Opens Path for Better 2D Catalysts
Rice University researchers have taken a deep look into atom-thick catalysts that produce hydrogen to see precisely where it’s coming from. Their findings could accelerate the development of 2-D materials for energy applications, such as fuel cells. The Rice lab of materials scientist Jun Lou, with colleagues at Los Alamos National Laboratory, developed a technique…
Four Elements Make 2D Optical Platform
Rice University scientists have discovered a two-dimensional alloy with an optical bandgap that can be tuned by the temperature used to grow it. The Rice lab of materials scientist Pulickel Ajayan grew the four-component alloy of transition metals molybdenum and tungsten with chalcogens sulfur and selenium in a chemical vapor deposition furnace. They found changes…
Filter May Be a Match for Fracking Water
A new filter produced by Rice University scientists has proven able to remove more than 90 percent of hydrocarbons, bacteria and particulates from contaminated water produced by hydraulic fracturing (fracking) operations at shale oil and gas wells. The work by Rice chemist Andrew Barron and his colleagues turns a ceramic membrane with microscale pores into…
Boron Nitride Foam Soaks Up Carbon Dioxide
Rice University materials scientists have created a light foam from two-dimensional sheets of hexagonal-boron nitride (h-BN) that absorbs carbon dioxide. They discovered freeze-drying h-BN turned it into a macro-scale foam that disintegrates in liquids. But adding a bit of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) into the mix transformed it into a far more robust and useful material.…
2-faced 2-D Material is a First at Rice
Like a sandwich with wheat on the bottom and rye on the top, Rice University scientists have cooked up a tasty new twist on two-dimensional materials. The Rice laboratory of materials scientist Jun Lou has made a semiconducting transition-metal dichalcogenide (TMD) that starts as a monolayer of molybdenum diselenide. They then strip the top layer of the…
Scientists Show Growing Atom-thin Sheets on Cones Allows Control of Defects
Rice University researchers have learned to manipulate two-dimensional materials to design in defects that enhance the materials’ properties. The Rice lab of theoretical physicist Boris Yakobson and colleagues at Oak Ridge National Laboratory are combining theory and experimentation to prove it’s possible to give 2-D materials specific defects, especially atomic-scale seams called grain boundaries. These boundaries may…
Landscapes Give Latitude to 2D Material Designers
Rice University researchers have learned to manipulate two-dimensional materials to design in defects that enhance the materials’ properties. The Rice lab of theoretical physicist Boris Yakobson and colleagues at Oak Ridge National Laboratory are combining theory and experimentation to prove it’s possible to give 2-D materials specific defects, especially atomic-scale seams called grain boundaries. These…
Two Sides to This Energy Story
Rice University chemists have produced a catalyst based on laser-induced graphene that splits water into hydrogen on one side and oxygen on the other side. They said the inexpensive material may be a practical component in generating the hydrogen for use in future fuel cells. The easily fabricated material developed by the Rice lab of…
Team Uses Phage-enhanced Nanoparticles to Kill Bacteria That Foul Water Treatment Systems
Magnetic nanoparticle clusters have the power to punch through biofilms to reach bacteria that can foul water treatment systems, according to scientists at Rice University and the University of Science and Technology of China. The nanoclusters developed through Rice’s Nanotechnology-Enabled Water Treatment (NEWT) Engineering Research Center carry bacteriophages—viruses that infect and propagate in bacteria—and deliver…
Chemists Make Laser-induced Graphene from Wood
Rice University scientists have made wood into an electrical conductor by turning its surface into graphene. Rice chemist James Tour and his colleagues used a laser to blacken a thin film pattern onto a block of pine. The pattern is laser-induced graphene (LIG), a form of the atom-thin carbon material discovered at Rice in 2014. “It’s a…
Reusable, Carbon Nanotube-Reinforced Filters Clean Toxins From Water
Carbon nanotubes immobilized in a tuft of quartz fiber have the power to remove toxic heavy metals from water, according to researchers at Rice University. Prize-winning filters produced in the lab of Rice chemist Andrew Barron by then-high school student and lead author Perry Alagappan absorb more than 99 percent of metals from samples laden…
Research Shows Reusable, Carbon Nanotube-reinforced Filters Clean Toxic Heavy Metals From Water
Carbon nanotubes immobilized in a tuft of quartz fiber have the power to remove toxic heavy metals from water, according to researchers at Rice University. Prize-winning filters produced in the lab of Rice chemist Andrew Barron by then-high school student and lead author Perry Alagappan absorb more than 99 percent of metals from samples laden with cadmium,…
Plasmon-powered Devices for Medicine, Security, Solar Cells
A Rice University professor’s method to “upconvert” light could make solar cells more efficient and disease-targeting nanoparticles more effective. Experiments led by Gururaj Naik, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, combined plasmonic metals and semiconducting quantum wells to boost the frequency of light, changing its color. In a nanoscale prototype Naik developed as a postdoctoral researcher…
Fluorine Grants White Graphene New Powers: Researchers Turn Common Insulator Into a Magnetic Semiconductor
A little fluorine turns an insulating ceramic known as white graphene into a wide-bandgap semiconductor with magnetic properties. Rice University scientists said that could make the unique material suitable for electronics in extreme environments. A proof-of-concept paper from Rice researchers demonstrates a way to turn two-dimensional hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) – aka white graphene – from an…
Engineers Developing a Flat Microscope for the Brain
Rice University engineers are building a flat microscope, called FlatScope TM, and developing software that can decode and trigger neurons on the surface of the brain. Their goal as part of a new government initiative is to provide an alternate path for sight and sound to be delivered directly to the brain. The project is…
Nature-inspired Material Uses Liquid Reinforcement
Materials scientists at Rice University are looking to nature — at the discs in human spines and the skin in ocean-diving fish, for example — for clues about designing materials with seemingly contradictory properties — flexibility and stiffness. In research appearing online in the journal Advanced Materials Interfaces, graduate student Peter Owuor, research scientist Chandra Sekhar…
Nature-Inspired Material Uses Liquid Reinforcement
Materials scientists at Rice University are looking to nature — at the discs in human spines and the skin in ocean-diving fish, for example — for clues about designing materials with seemingly contradictory properties — flexibility and stiffness. In research appearing online in the journal Advanced Materials Interfaces, graduate student Peter Owuor, research scientist Chandra Sekhar…
Ruthenium Rules for New Fuel Cells
Rice University scientists have fabricated a durable catalyst for high-performance fuel cells by attaching single ruthenium atoms to graphene. Catalysts that drive the oxygen reduction reaction that lets fuel cells turn chemical energy into electricity are usually made of platinum, which stands up to the acidic nature of the cell’s charge-carrying electrolyte. But platinum is…
Ruthenium Rules for New Fuel Cells
Chemists Create 3D Printed Graphene Foam
Nanotechnologists from Rice University and China’s Tianjin University have used 3-D laser printing to fabricate centimeter-sized objects of atomically thin graphene. The research could yield industrially useful quantities of bulk graphene and is described online in a new study in the American Chemical Society journal ACS Nano. “This study is a first of its kind,” said Rice…
Chemists Create 3-D Printed Graphene Foam
Nanotechnologists from Rice University and China’s Tianjin University have used 3-D laser printing to fabricate centimeter-sized objects of atomically thin graphene. The research could yield industrially useful quantities of bulk graphene and is described online in a new study in the American Chemical Society journal ACS Nano. “This study is a first of its kind,” said Rice…
Freshwater from Salt Water Using Only Solar Energy
A federally funded research effort to revolutionize water treatment has yielded an off-grid technology that uses energy from sunlight alone to turn salt water into fresh drinking water. The desalination system, which uses a combination of membrane distillation technology and light-harvesting nanophotonics, is the first major innovation from the Center for Nanotechnology Enabled Water Treatment…