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Scientists invent “slime” that could be used in new medical, green energy, and robot applications

2025/02/062025/02/06

University of Guelph (U of G) researchers have developed a slime-like material that produces electricity when compressed. When the team studied their prototype using the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan, they discovered the material has an array of potential applications.

If installed in floors, it could produce clean energy when people walk on it. If incorporated into a shoe insole, it could be used to analyze your gait. In theory, says lead researcher Erica Pensini, their material could even be used as the basis for a synthetic skin to train robots to know how much pressure to use when checking the pulse of a patient.

“The synchrotron is like a super-microscope,” says Pensini. “It allowed us to see that if you apply an electric field, you can change the crystalline structure of this material.”

Pensini, an associate professor at U of G, and colleagues, found that the “slime” could form different structures at the microscopic level so that it either arranged itself like a sponge, formed layers like a lasagna, or took on a hexagonal form. Pensini conducted the work in collaboration with U of G professors Alejandro G. Marangoni, Aicheng Chen, and Stefano Gregori.

This property, explains Pensini, could offer an opportunity for the targeted delivery of medicine within the body. “Imagine you have the material take an initial structure that contains a pharmaceutical substance and then, when an electric field is applied to it, the structure changes to release the medicine.”

The team’s prototype is composed of natural materials that are highly compatible with the body. It is 90 per cent water plus oleic acid (found in olive oil) and amino acids (the building blocks of protein in the body). “I wanted to make something that is 100 per cent benign and that I would put on my skin without any concerns,” she says.

Read more on CLS website

Relationship between enhanced electrochemical performance and partially amorphous material structure

2024/07/262024/07/29

A research team under the leadership of Sebastian Molin D.Sc., from the Faculty of Electronics, Telecommunications and Informatics at Gdańsk University of Technology (as part of a joint project with scientists from the Warsaw University of Technology and Kaunas University of Technology), in collaboration with ASTRA beamline scientists, characterised the perovskite oxide La_0.6Sr_)0.4CoO_3-δ as an oxygen electrode for solid oxide fuel cell technology. This material showed enhanced electrochemical efficiency for the reduction of oxygen when present in a partially amorphous form. Using X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) at the SOLARIS synchrotron. The results of the study have been published in the journal of Applied Surface Science, published by Elsevier.

Read more on SOLARIS website

Image: Wavelet Transform calculated from EXAFS for La_0.6Sr_0.4CoO_3-δannealed at range 400 °C–700 °C.

LAAAMP-Funded Team Makes a Journey of Miles and Nanometers

2023/12/052024/01/02

This is a story of miles and nanometers. Celline Awino Omondi and Miller Shatsala traveled from Kakamega, Kenya, to Berkeley, USA, through a grant from Lightsources for Africa, the Americas, Asia, Middle East, and Pacific (LAAAMP), a journey of over 9,400 miles. Their research interests, however, are best described with nanometers—very thin perovskite films to be used for solar energy.

At their home institution, Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology, Omondi is a faculty member and Shatsala is a PhD student in the department of physics. Omondi’s interest in new materials began in graduate school. “I did a master’s in materials nanotechnology, and it was so interesting, I wanted to continue in materials science,” she said. Though her doctoral studies were in Germany, her research inspiration was closer to home. “In Africa, we have abundant solar radiation. So, we are looking for a way to tap into that solar radiation so that we can use it for our daily life.”

Omondi envisions many applications for photovoltaics. With the new materials under development, solar energy could be used in the future for everything from household electricity to vaccine storage in hospitals and irrigation on farms. New materials to harness solar energy would be life changing. “Most parts of Africa aren’t on the grid, and if they have electricity, it’s very expensive,” Omondi explained.

Similarly, Shatsala’s master’s thesis research focused on silicon solar cells. “Then I discovered that there are new materials coming up in solar energy whose efficiency was almost passing silicon, so that’s why I shifted to perovskites,” he said.

To characterize the perovskites they’re studying, the two researchers came to the Advanced Light Source through a LAAAMP Faculty-Student (FAST) Teams grant. The program provides financial support for PhD students and their faculty advisors from Africa, the Caribbean, Mexico, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Pacific to spend two months in residence at a collaborative partner light source. With this training opportunity, scientists like Omondi and Shatsala will be able to take their newfound skills and knowledge back to a region that is still in the planning phases for its own synchrotron facility. One day in the future, the two researchers could be part of operating and using this facility—the African Light Source. “We were privileged to be picked to be among the few people in Africa to come to the ALS,” said Shatsala.

Read more on the ALS website

Image: The researchers at Beamline 7.3.3. Left to right: Yunfei Wang, Aidan Coffey, Miller Shatsala, Celline Omondi, Chenhui Zhu

Powering the future of clean energy

2020/10/262020/10/27

Hydrogen gas can be used to power vehicles and has the potential to provide electricity to homes

The global quest for clean energy is championed by researchers in Canada who are focused on harnessing the potential of hydrogen.

The idea of the hydrogen economy was first proposed 50 years ago as a way to combat the negative effects of fossil fuels. Its future is the focus of new research from the University of Toronto’s Thermofluids for Energy and Advanced Materials (TEAM) lab, whose work relied on the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan to visualize performance.

Read more on the Canadian Light Source website

Image: Adam Webb (CLS), Sergey Gasilov (CLS), Manojkumar Balakrishnan (U of T), Jason Keonhag Lee (U of T), Denise Miller (CLS), Kieran Fahy (U of T) on the BMIT beamline at CLS.

Feeling the strain: shear effects in magnetoelectric switching

2019/06/182019/06/24

Diamond uncovers unexpected complexity that may aid magnetoelectric data storage devices.

The high resolution and wealth of data provided by an experiment at Diamond can lead to unexpected discoveries. The piezoelectric properties of the ceramic perovskite PMN-PT (0.68Pb(Mg_1/3Nb_2/3)O₃–0.32PbTiO₃) are widely used in commercial actuators, where the strain that is generated varies continuously with applied voltage. However, if the applied voltage is cycled appropriately then there are discontinuous changes of strain. These discontinuous changes can be used to drive magnetic switching in a thin overlying ferromagnet, permitting magnetic information to be written electrically. An international team of researchers used beamline I06 to investigate a ferromagnetic film of nickel when it served as a sensitive strain gauge for single-crystal PMN-PT. Their initial interpretation of the results suggested that ferroelectric domain switching rotated the magnetic domains in the film by the expected angle of 90°, but a closer examination revealed the true picture to be more complex. Their work, recently published in Nature Materials, shows that the ferroelectric domain switching rotated the magnetic domains in the film by considerably less than 90° due to an accompanying shear strain. The findings offer both a challenge and an opportunity for the design of next-generation data storage devices, and will surely be relevant if the work is extended to explore the electrically driven manipulation of more complex magnetic textures.

Image: Magnetic vector map (50 µm field of view) describing the magnetisation of a Ni film while applying 50 V across the ferroelectric substrate of PMN-PT. The colour wheel identifies magnetisation direction. Yellow and brown denotes regions whose magnetisation was unaffected by the voltage.

Improving engine performance and fuel efficiency

2019/05/152019/05/16

A study conducted in part at the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan suggests reformulating lubricating oils for internal combustion engines could significantly improve not only the life of the oil but the life of the engine too.
Dr. Pranesh Aswath with the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Texas at Arlington and his research colleagues focused on the role soot plays in engine wear, and its effect on the stability of engine oil.
He described the research as “one piece of a broader story we’re trying to write” about how the reformulation of engine oils can reduce emissions, decrease wear and increase the longevity of engines.
Soot is a carbon-based material that results from incomplete combustion of fuel in an internal combustion engine, he explained. The soot ends up in crankcase oil where it is trapped by additives, but that leads to reduced engine efficiency and a breakdown of lubricating oil.

Cause of cathode degradation identified for nickel-rich materials

2019/03/152019/03/15

Combination of research methods reveals causes of capacity fading, giving scientists better insight to design advanced batteries for electric vehicles

A team of scientists including researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have identified the causes of degradation in a cathode material for lithium-ion batteries, as well as possible remedies. Their findings, published on Mar. 7 in Advanced Functional Materials, could lead to the development of more affordable and better performing batteries for electric vehicles.

Searching for high-performance cathode materials
For electric vehicles to deliver the same reliability as gas vehicles they need lightweight yet powerful batteries. Lithium-ion batteries are the most common type of battery found in electric vehicles today, but their high cost and limited lifetimes are limitations to the widespread deployment of electric vehicles. To overcome these challenges, scientists at many of DOE’s national labs are researching ways to improve the traditional lithium-ion battery.

Image: Members of the Brookhaven team are shown at NSLS-II’s ISS beamline, where part of the research was conducted. Pictured from front to back are Eli Stavitski, Xiao-Qing Yang, Xuelong Wang, and Enyuan Hu.

SESAME fully powered by renewable energy

2019/02/262019/02/28

SESAME becomes the world’s first large accelerator complex to be fully powered by renewable energy.

Today (26 February 2019), a ceremony was held to mark the official inauguration of the solar power plant of SESAME (Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East).
Constructed on grounds next to JAEC (Jordan Atomic Energy Commission) that is located some 30kms from SESAME, electricity from the solar power plant will be supplied by an on-grid photovoltaic system having a total power capacity of 6.48 MW, which will amply satisfy SESAME’s needs for several years.
Thanks to this power plant SESAME is now not only the first synchrotron light facility in the region, but also the world’s first large accelerator complex to be fully powered by renewable energy. “As in the case of all accelerators, SESAME is in dire need of energy, and as the number of its users increases so will its electricity bill” said the Director of SESAME, Khaled Toukan. “Given the very high cost of electricity in Jordan, with this solar power plant the Centre becomes sustainable” he continued to say.
The power plant, which uses monocrystalline solar panels, was built by the Jordanian company Kawar Energy under the supervision of the consultancy firm Consolidated Consultants Group representing the owner, SESAME. Power from the solar power plant will be transmitted to the grid through the wheeling mechanism by JEPCO (Jordan Electric Power Company). The power that the solar power plant sends to the grid will be accounted for to the credit of SESAME.

>Read more on the SESAME website

Image: SESAME’s solar power plant.
Credit: SESAME.

Spin-momentum locking in cuprate high-temperature superconductors

2019/02/192019/02/26

The results open a new chapter in the mystery of high-temperature superconductors, suggesting that new, unexplored interactions and mechanisms might be at play.

In the world of superconductors, “high temperature” means that the material can conduct electricity without resistance at temperatures higher than expected, but still far below room temperature. Within this special class of high-temperature superconductors (HTSCs), cuprates—consisting of superconducting CuO₂ layers separated by spacer layers—are some of the best performers, generating interest in these materials for potential use in super-efficient electrical wires that can carry power without any loss of electron momentum.

A new spin on cuprate HTSCs

Two kinds of electron interactions have been known to give rise to novel properties in new materials, including superconductors. Scientists who study cuprate superconductors have focused on just one of those interactions: electron correlation—electrons interacting with each other. The other kind of electron interaction found in exotic materials is spin-orbit coupling—the way in which an electron’s magnetic moment interacts with atoms in the material.

Image: Chris Jozwiak, Alessandra Lanzara, Kenneth Gotlieb, and Chiu-Yun Lin.
Credit: Peter DaSilva/Berkeley Lab

Unlocking the secrets of metal-insulator transitions

2018/11/082018/11/09

X-ray photon correlation spectroscopy at NSLS-II’s CSX beamline used to understand electrical conductivity transitions in magnetite.

By using an x-ray technique available at the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II), scientists found that the metal-insulator transition in the correlated material magnetite is a two-step process. The researchers from the University of California Davis published their paper in the journal Physical Review Letters. NSLS-II, a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science user facility located at Brookhaven National Laboratory, has unique features that allow the technique to be applied with stability and control over long periods of time.
“Correlated materials have interesting electronic, magnetic, and structural properties, and we try to understand how those properties change when their temperature is changed or under the application of light pulses, or an electric field” said Roopali Kukreja, a UC Davis professor and the lead author of the paper. One such property is electrical conductivity, which determines whether a material is metallic or an insulator.

If a material is a good conductor of electricity, it is usually metallic, and if it is not, it is then known as an insulator. In the case of magnetite, temperature can change whether the material is a conductor or insulator. For the published study, the researchers’ goal was to see how the magnetite changed from insulator to metallic at the atomic level as it got hotter.

Image: Professor Roopali Kukreja from the University of California in Davis and the CSX team Wen Hu, Claudio Mazzoli, and Andi Barbour prepare the beamline for the next set of experiments.

Pressure tuning of light-induced superconductivity in K3C60

2018/07/242018/09/03

Unlike ordinary metals, superconductors have the unique capability of transporting electrical currents without any loss. Nowadays, their technological application is hindered by their low operating temperature, which in the best case can reach -70 degrees Celsius. Researchers of the group of Prof. A. Cavalleri at the Max Planck Institute of the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (MPSD) in Hamburg have routinely used intense laser pulses to stimulate different classes of superconducting materials. Under specific conditions, they have detected evidences of superconductivity at unprecedented high temperatures, although this state persisted very shortly, just for a small fraction of a second.
An important example is that of K₃C₆₀, an organic molecular solidformed by weakly-interacting C60 “buckyball” molecules (60 carbon atoms bond in the shape of a football),which is superconducting at equilibrium below a critical temperature of -250 degrees Celsius. In 2016, Mitrano and coworkers at the MPSD discovered that tailored laserpulses, tuned to induce vibrations of the C60 molecules,can induce a short-lived, highly conducting state with properties identical to those of a superconductor, up to a temperature of at least -170 degrees Celsius, far higher than the equilibrium critical temperature (Mitrano et al., Nature, 530, 461–464 (2016)).

In their most recent investigation, A. Cantaluppi, M. Buzzi and colleagues at MPSD in Hamburg went a decisive step further by monitoring the evolution of the light-induced state in K₃C₆₀ once external pressure was applied by a diamond anvil cell (Figure 1). At equilibrium, when pressure is applied, the C₆₀ molecules in the potassium-doped fulleride are held closer to each other. This weakens the equilibrium superconducting state and significantly reduces the critical temperature. The steady state optical response of K₃C₆₀at different pressures and temperatures was determined via Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, by exploiting the high brightness of the synchrotron radiation available at the infrared beamline SISSI at Elettra.

>Read more on the Elettra website

Image: Light-induced superconductivity in K₃C₆₀ was investigated at high pressure in a Diamond Anvil Cell.
Credit: Jörg Harms / MPSD

An electrifying view on catalysis

2018/07/032018/07/12

The future of chemistry is ‘electrifying’: With increasing availability of cheap electrical energy from renewables, it will soon become possible to drive many chemical processes by electrical power. In this way, chemical products and fuels can be produced via sustainable routes, replacing current processes which are based on fossil fuels.

In most cases, such electrically driven reactions make use of so-called electrocatalysts, complex materials which are assembled from a large number of chemical componentAs. The electrocatalyst plays an essential role: It helps to run the chemical reaction while keeping the loss of energy minimal, thereby saving as much renewable energy as possible. In most cases, electrocatalysts are developed empirically and the chemical reactions at their interfaces are poorly understood. A better understanding of these processes is essential, however, for fast development of new electrocatalysts and for a directed improvement of their lifetime, one of the most important factors that currently limit their applicability.

>Read more on the Elettra website

Figure: Introducing well-defined model electrocatalysts into the field of electrochemistry.

Perovskites, the rising star for energy harvesting

2018/06/052018/06/18

Perovskites are promising candidates for photovoltaic cells, having reached an energy harvesting of more than 20% while it took silicon three decades to reach an equivalent. Scientists from all over the world are exploring these materials at the ESRF.

Photovoltaic (PV) panels exist in our society since several years now. The photovoltaic market is currently dominated by wafer-based photovoltaics or first generation PVs, namely the traditional crystalline silicon cells, which take a 90% of the market share.

Although silicon (Si) is an abundant material and the price of Si-PV has dropped in the past years, their manufacturing require costly facilities. In addition, their fabrication typically takes place in countries that rely on carbon-intensive forms of electricity generation (high carbon footprint).

But there is room for hope. There is a third generation of PV: those based on thin-film cells. These absorb light more efficiently and they currently take 10% of the market share.

Image: The CEA-CNRS team on ID01. From left to right: Peter Reiss, from CEA-Grenoble/INAC, Tobias Schulli from ID01, Tao Zhou from ID01, Asma Aicha Medjahed, Stephanie Pouget (both from CEA-Grenoble/INAC) and David Djurado, from the CNRS.
Credits: C. Argoud.

The power supplies giving Diamond a boost

2018/05/242018/05/25

The electrons that produce Diamond’s ultra-bright light whizz round the storage ring fast enough to travel around the entire world 7.5 times in a single second. But they don’t start out life super speedy, and they need a huge energy boost to get them ready for work!

Diamond’s electrons are generated in the injection system, where they are produced by a glowing filament (just like a dim light bulb) and accelerated to ninety thousand electron volts (90 keV). From there, a linear accelerator (linac) takes over, accelerating the electrons to a hundred million electron volts (100 MeV, or 0.1 GeV).

That’s not fast enough though, so the electrons from the linac are fed into the booster ring, where they’re are accelerated to 3 GeV by passing through an RF cavity millions of times. It’s like microwaving the electrons to get them to accelerate, which is not an easy task. The electrons want to travel in a straight line, and have to be forced to bend around the ring by dipole bending magnets. As the energy of the electrons increases, it gets harder to keep them moving around the booster ring, and the bending magnets need more power.

Image: Members of the Power Supply team working in the Booster Supply Hall.

Scientists discover material ideal for smart photovoltaic windows

2018/01/222018/01/24

Berkeley Lab researchers make thermochromic windows with perovskite solar cell

Smart windows that are transparent when it’s dark or cool but automatically darken when the sun is too bright are increasingly popular energy-saving devices. But imagine that when the window is darkened, it simultaneously produces electricity. Such a material – a photovoltaic glass that is also reversibly thermochromic – is a green technology researchers have long worked toward, and now, scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have demonstrated a way to make it work.

Researchers at Berkeley Lab, a Department of Energy (DOE) national lab, discovered that a form of perovskite, one of the hottest materials in solar research currently due to its high conversion efficiency, works surprisingly well as a stable and photoactive semiconductor material that can be reversibly switched between a transparent state and a non-transparent state, without degrading its electronic properties.

Image Credit: iStock

Surprising Discovery Could Lead to Better Batteries

2018/01/122018/01/31

Scientists have observed how lithium moves inside individual nanoparticles that make up batteries. The finding could help companies develop batteries that charge faster and last longer

UPTON, NY – A collaboration led by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory has observed an unexpected phenomenon in lithium-ion batteries—the most common type of battery used to power cell phones and electric cars. As a model battery generated electric current, the scientists witnessed the concentration of lithium inside individual nanoparticles reverse at a certain point, instead of constantly increasing. This discovery, which was published on January 12 in the journal Science Advances, is a major step toward improving the battery life of consumer electronics.

“If you have a cell phone, you likely need to charge its battery every day, due to the limited capacity of the battery’s electrodes,” said Esther Takeuchi, a SUNY distinguished professor at Stony Brook University and a chief scientist in the Energy Sciences Directorate at Brookhaven Lab. “The findings in this study could help develop batteries that charge faster and last longer.”

>Read more on the NSLS-II website

Picture: Brookhaven scientists are shown at the Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science Department’s TEM facility, where part of the study was conducted. Pictured from left to right are Jianming Bai, Feng Wang, Wei Zhang, Yimei Zhu, and Lijun Wu.