A team of multi-disciplinary scientists and engineers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have discovered a new, more precise method to create nanoscale-size electromechanical devices. Their research findings are published in Nature Communications. “In the last five years, there has been a huge gold rush where researchers figured out we could make 2D materials…
Supercomputer Technology is Helping Unlock the Mystery of Medieval Graffiti
Visitors to San Marco Basilica in Venice, Italy are likely to feel a sense of awe: the sheer mass of the thousand-year-old structure and the details of its ostentatious decoration are undeniably impressive. But Mia Trentin, a postdoctoral fellow with the Cyprus Institute, an international partner of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at Illinois, hasn’t…
Satellites, Supercomputers and Machine Learning Provide Real-time Crop Type Data
Corn and soybean fields look similar from space – at least they used to. But now, scientists have proven a new technique for distinguishing the two crops using satellite data and the processing power of supercomputers. “If we want to predict corn or soybean production for Illinois or the entire United States, we have to…
Battery Technology Inspires Possible Desalination Breakthrough
Engineers at the University of Illinois have taken a step forward in developing a saltwater desalination process that is potentially cheaper than reverse osmosis and borrows from battery technology. In their study, the researchers are focusing on new materials that could make desalination of brackish waters economically desirable and energy efficient. The need for practical…
‘Fizzy’ Soda Water Could Be Key in Clean and Sustainable Manufacture of Graphene
Whether you call it effervescent, fizzy, or sparkling, carbonated water is making a comeback as a beverage. Aside from quenching thirst, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have discovered a new use for these “bubbly” concoctions that will have major impact on the manufacture of the world’s thinnest, flattest, and one of its most…
Open-Source Plant Database Confirms Top US Bioenergy Crop
Scientists have confirmed that Miscanthus, long speculated to be the top biofuel producer, yields more than twice as much as switchgrass in the U.S. using an open-source bioenergy crop database gaining traction in plant science, climate change, and ecology research. “To understand yield trends and variation across the country for our major food crops, extensive databases…