industry – Lightsources.org

Preventing tumour metastasis

2019/08/222019/08/27

Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute, together with colleagues from the pharmaceutical company F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, have taken an important step towards the development of an agent against the metastasis of certain cancers.

Using the Swiss Light Source, they deciphered the structure of a receptor that plays a crucial role in the migration of cancer cells. This makes it possible to identify agents that could prevent the spread of certain cancer cells via the body’s lymphatic system. The researchers have now published their results in the journal Cell.
When cancer cells spread in the body, secondary tumours, called metastases, can develop. These are responsible for around 90 percent of deaths in cancer patients. An important pathway for spreading the cancer cells is through the lymphatic system, which, like the system of blood vessels, runs through the entire body and connects lymph nodes to each other. In the migration of white blood cells through this system, for example to coordinate the defense against pathogens, one special membrane protein, the chemokine receptor 7 (CCR7) plays an important role. It sits in the shell of the cells, the cell membrane, in such a way that it can receive external signals and relay them to the interior. Within the framework of a joint project with the pharmaceutical company F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG (Roche), researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) have for the first time been able to decipher the structure of CCR7 and lay the foundation for the development of a drug that could prevent metastasis in certain prevalent cancer types, such as colorectal cancer.

Illuminating a key industrial process

2019/02/132019/02/14

Results of research carried out at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Advanced Photon Source (APS) may pave the way to improvements in industrial processes based on solvent extraction, which is used in the mining and refinement of technologically important rare earths. The results were published in the journal Physical Review Letters.
Rare earths such as lanthanides, which are elements in the range of atomic number 57 to 71, are not actually rare. They exist in large quantities in the world, but are only found in the form of trace amounts in rocks. Since rare earths are important for a variety of applications (e.g., electronics) their extraction is a major mining-related industry.
A common process by which rare earths are extracted involves dissolving rocks in acids, then shaking up the solution with an organic solvent and a surfactant. Under the right conditions, the desired ions move out of the aqueous phase and into the organic solvent. This is known as “liquid-liquid extraction” or “solvent extraction,” and is conducted on a large scale by the mining industry. This process also separates heavier lanthanides from lighter lanthanides present in the same solution, because the heavier lanthanides separate more easily. While this fact is known and exploited in industrial separations processes, the nanoscale mechanisms of the separation process are not well understood.

Image: (a ) Schematic of system studied; positively charged lanthanide ions (blue circles) dissolve in the water, while the negatively charged surfactant molecules (purple) float on the water surface. (b) Data showing how density of ions at the surfactant surface jumps as the concentration of ions in the bulk water increases (Er=erbium, a heavier lanthanide, Nd=neodymium, a lighter lanthanide). The lines thru data are predictions from computer simulations. From M. Miller et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 058001 (2019).

Industrial collaboration

2018/11/142018/12/18

Fabia Gozzo made a beamline at the Swiss Light Source SLS of the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI into one of the world’s leading facilities and today she is making her knowledge available to industry with her spin-off.

In spring 2012 Fabia Gozzo faced an important decision: security or risk? After 12 years, she had resigned from her job at the Paul Scherrer Institute to move to Brussels with her family. Her husband had taken a post as vice president of a company. The two had previously agreed to emigrate if one of them got such a one-of-a-kind offer.

Fabia Gozzo was looking for a job too. Soon she had an offer for a position as laboratory head at a Brussels-based institute for nano- and microelectronics. The position would have been a comparable to the one she had held up to that point at PSI. Then I asked myself: For that, do I want to burden myself with the trouble of this big relocation?, Gozzo says today. She found the answer was no. And instead, she founded her own firm: Excelsus Structural Solutions.

She had long had the idea of offering her experience in the analysis of material structures, which she had gained at the Swiss Light Source SLS, to the pharmaceutical industry. With the synchrotron light, the smallest devation from the desired solid structure in drugs can be detected – so their effectiveness can be improved. Gozzo and PSI signed an agreement for regular commercial use of a beamline at SLS. Now all Gozzo needed was customers. She gave herself two years to see if it would all work out.

Image: Fabia Gozzo is CEO and founder of Excelsus Structural Solutions.
Credit: Scanderbeg Sauer Photography

Samtack uses ALBA Synchrotron light for improving food packaging

2018/10/112018/10/19

Thanks to the CALIPSOplus European project, Samtack company is analysing at ALBA nanoparticles contained in a new food packaging system that will prevent food oxidation and extend its lifetime.

We all expect to purchase high quality and fresh food that, even if it has been kept for few days in the supermarket shelf, it still maintains its optimum safety and quality such as well as flavor. Different ambient conditions can modify food quality: moisture can affect the crispness of the product, oxygen can oxidize food with large fat components (e.g. potato chips) and change its taste, while light can degrade vitamins from milk or even remove the aromatic and volatile components from ground coffee and off-taste. Hence, different barriers are required to protect food from moisture, oxygen or light and that’s the point where packaging plays a key role. Packaging acts as a barrier and extends the product’s shelf life while contributing to diminish the amount of food that is thrown away and avoiding overproduction of food.

Samtack, founded in 1988 and based in Esparreguera (Barcelona), is a manufacturer of glues and adhesives specialized in the sector of graphic arts and packaging. Samtack has developed a new flexible multilayer system, in collaboration with the University of Zaragoza and the Complutense University of Madrid, that contains Selenium nanoparticles and is capable to increase food shelf life.

>Read more on the ALBA website

Year of Engineering I23 Gripper Spotlight

2018/10/082018/10/11

Celebrating the Year of Engineering on Beamline I23

The Year of Engineering (UK) is all about celebrating the world and wonder of the industry, and exploring the wide range of ideas and innovations that Engineering involves. Today, we’re having a look at Diamond’s Beamline I23 – a specially designed instrument for protein crystallography that uses long wavelengths.
There are unique engineering scientific challenges involved in designing a system that will allow researchers to use long wavelengths of Synchrotron radiation effectively. The special cryogenically-cooled sample gripper on I23, is one of the solutions that makes this beamline successful. Learn more about this engineering innovation.

Highly efficient single-atom catalyst could help auto industry

2018/09/242018/09/27

A longer-lasting, higher-efficiency platinum catalyst has been developed by a Dalhousie University-led team, a result with major implications for the automobile industry.

Platinum catalysts help deactivate toxic exhaust gases from traditional car engines. Platinum is also used to help drive the chemical reactions that make zero-emissions hydrogen fuel cells possible – a technology that could transform automobiles as we know them.

The new catalyst combines gold and platinum to form what’s known as a single-atom catalyst, resulting in nearly 100-fold increases in efficiency over market platinum catalysts, says Peng Zhang, the Dalhousie professor who led this research.
Not only is efficiency improved at the outset, but it is maintained through the catalyst’s lifetime: normally, a platinum catalyst works less well over time as carbon monoxide molecules tightly bond to and block platinum from helping reactions along.
Improvements come from two properties: the single atom structure, which maximizes platinum’s active surface area, and the unique electronic properties that adding gold to create an alloy helps to achieve.

Image: The blue balls represent platinum atoms, surrounded by gold atoms (yellow). This structure maximizes the platinum catalyst’s efficiency.

Graphene-Based Catalyst Improves Peroxide Production

2018/08/222018/08/30

Hydrogen peroxide is an important commodity chemical with a growing demand in many areas, including the electronics industry, wastewater treatment, and paper recycling.

Hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) is a common household chemical, well known for its effectiveness at whitening and disinfecting. It’s also a valuable commodity chemical used to etch circuit boards, treat wastewater, and bleach paper and pulp—a market expected to grow as demand for recycled paper products increases.

Compared to chlorine-based bleaches, hydrogen peroxide is more environmentally benign: the only degradation product of its use is water. However, it’s currently produced through a multistep chemical reaction that consumes significant amounts of energy, generates substantial waste, and requires a catalyst of palladium—a rare and expensive metal. Furthermore, the transport and storage of bulk hydrogen peroxide can be hazardous, making local, on-demand production highly desirable.

Better living through electrochemistry

Scientists seek a way to generate hydrogen peroxide electrochemically—by a much simpler process called the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). This reaction takes oxygen from the air and combines it with water and two electrons to produce H₂O₂. If this reaction could be efficiently catalyzed, it could enable the disinfection of water at remote locations, or during disaster recovery, using hydrogen peroxide made from local air and water. For this work, the researchers focused on hydrogen peroxide synthesis in alkaline environments, where the reaction bath can be used directly, such as for bleaching or the treatment of acidic waste streams.

Image: The production of hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) from oxygen (O₂) was efficiently catalyzed by graphene oxide, a form of graphene characterized by various oxygen defects that act as centers for catalytic activity. Depicted are two types of defects: one in which an oxygen atom bridges two carbon atoms above the graphene plane, and one where oxygen atoms replace carbon atoms within the graphene plane.

Fuel cells from plants

2018/07/182018/07/19

Using elements in plants to increase fuel cell efficiency while reducing costs

Researchers from the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique, Québec are looking into reeds, tall wetlands plants, in order to make cheaper catalysts for high-performance fuel cells.

Due to rising global energy demands and the threat caused by environmental pollution, the search for new, clean sources of energy is on.

Unlike a battery, which stores electricity for later use, a fuel cell generates electricity from stored materials, or fuels.

Hydrogen-based fuel is a very clean fuel source that only produces water as a by-product, and could effectively replace fossil fuels. In order to make hydrogen fuel viable for everyday use, high-performance fuel cells are needed to convert the energy from the hydrogen into electricity.

Hydrogen fuel cells use platinum catalysts to drive energy conversion, but the platinum is expensive, accounting for almost half of a fuel cell’s total cost according to Qiliang Wei, a PhD student in Shuhui Sun’s group from the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique – Énergie, Matériaux et Télécommunications who studies lower-cost alternatives to platinum catalysts.

Taking additive manufacturing’s heart beat

2018/05/212018/05/22

Additive manufacturing, or 3D printing, builds objects by adding layers and it is emerging as a more flexible and reliable way of manufacturing complex structures in the aerospace, engineering and biomedical industries. A British team is at the ESRF’s ID19 to see into the heart of the process and understand it.

“I would not want to ship this equipment on an aeroplane”, Chu Lun Alex Leung said, scientist from the University of Manchester. “It was too precious to leave it in the hands of third parties”, he added. Instead of coming to the ESRF by aeroplane, Leung and his colleagues endured the 12-hour drive in a rental van all the way from Oxfordshire (UK) to the ESRF to make sure their unique equipment arrived safely.

Leung was referring to the laser additive manufacturing (LAM) process replicator, or LAMPR for short, a machine himself and colleagues at the Research Complex at Harwell have developed that 3D prints polymers, metals and ceramics while ESRF’s X-rays probe the heart of the process – the melting and solidification of powders to form complex 3D printed components.

Image: The team on the beamline, next to the laser additive manufacturing (LAM) process replicator. Front row: Margie P. Olbinado, Yunhui Chen. Back row: Sam Tammas-Williams, Lorna Sinclair, Peter D. Lee, Chu lun alex Leung, Samuel Clark, Sebastian Marussi.
Credit: C.Argoud

Stressing over new materials

2018/03/062018/03/14

Titanium is a workhorse metal of the modern age. Alloyed with small amounts of aluminum and vanadium, it is used in aircraft, premium sports equipment, race cars, space craft, high-end bicycles, and medical devices because of its light weight, ability to withstand extreme temperatures, and excellent corrosion resistance. But titanium is also expensive. Metallurgists would love to understand exactly what makes it so strong so that they could design other materials with similarly desirable properties out of more common, less expensive elements. Now, researchers utilizing the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Photon Source (APS) have used high-intensity x-rays to show how titanium alloy responds to stress in its (until now) hidden interior. Eventually, the researchers believe they will be able to predict how strong a titanium part such as an aircraft engine will be, just by knowing how the crystals are arranged inside of it. And materials scientists may be able to use such a computational model to swap in atoms from different metals to see how their crystalline structures compare to that of titanium.

Figure: (extract) (A) A computational model of crystals inside a block of titanium, (B) includes effects noticed during the experiment to place permanent deformations (the darkened areas,) [not visible here, entire picture here] while (C) models permanent deformations without incorporating the diversity of load seen in the experiment.

Opportunities for industry in the Big Science Business Forum

2018/02/232018/03/12

The European Synchrotron is immersed in the construction of the Extremely Brilliant Source, a new machine which has and will continue to open doors for industry to get involved.

From procurement to licensing or even through European programmes, the possibilities of marrying the big scientific infrastructures to industry are endless. A team of ESRF engineers and experts are present at the Big Science Business Forum this week to showcase their expertise and match it with the best companies.

In the coming years, with the new machine, there will be 56 million euros for technology development up for grabs. These will cover instrumentation and X-ray optics for the beamlines, detectors, electronics and motor control and information technology. “We have successfully finalised all of the procurement regarding the construction of the new machine, now we are concentrating on the new beamlines”, explains Ingrid Milanese, head of procurement and contracts.

Procurement at a place like the ESRF is an exciting albeit sometimes challenging task. The fact that the institute’s developments are at the forefront of technology means that the procurement officers deal with a very specialised market, so there is a lot of work on trying to find the right companies. On top of that, there are strict timeframes to be respected, as well as a policy of juste-retour with the member states that participate in funding the ESRF. “Because of our nature, we challenge industry and create opportunities for disruptive innovation in many different fields”, explains Michael Krisch, member of the ATTRACT Project Consortium Board and Head of the Instrumentation Services and Development Division at the ESRF.

SLAC scientists investigate how metal 3D printing can avoid producing flawed parts

2018/01/302018/02/05

The goal of these X-ray studies is to find ways to improve manufacturing of specialized metal parts for the aerospace, aircraft, automotive and healthcare industries.

Scientists at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory are using X-ray light to observe and understand how the process of making metal parts using three-dimensional (3-D) printing can leave flaws in the finished product – and discover how those flaws can be prevented. The studies aim to help manufacturers build more reliable parts on the spot – whether in a factory, on a ship or plane, or even remotely in space – and do it more efficiently, without needing to store thousands of extra parts.

The work is taking place at the lab’s Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL) in collaboration with scientists from the DOE’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Ames Laboratory.

The 3-D printing process, also known as additive manufacturing, builds solid, three-dimensional objects from a computer model by adding material layer by layer. The use of plastics and polymers in 3-D printing has advanced rapidly, but 3-D printing with metals for industrial purposes has been more challenging to sort out.

>Read more on the SSRL website

Picture: SLAC staff scientist Johanna Nelson Weker, front, leads a study on metal 3-D printing at SLAC’s Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource with researchers Andrew Kiss and Nick Calta, back.
Credit: Dawn Harmer/SLAC

How metal 3-D printing can avoid producing flawed parts

2018/01/302018/03/12

The goal of these X-ray studies is to find ways to improve manufacturing of specialized metal parts for the aerospace, aircraft, automotive and healthcare industries.

The work is taking place at the lab’s Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL) in collaboration with scientists from the DOE’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Ames Laboratory.

“With 3-D printing, you can make parts with very complex geometries that are not accessible for casting like regular metal parts,” says SLAC staff scientist Johanna Nelson Weker, who is leading the project. “Theoretically, it can be a quick turnaround – simply design, send, print from a remote location. But we’re not there yet. We still need to figure out all of the parameters involved in making solid, strong parts.”

Image: SLAC staff scientist Johanna Nelson Weker, front, leads a study on metal 3-D printing at SLAC’s Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource with researchers Andrew Kiss and Nick Calta, back.
Credit: Dawn Harmer/SLAC

ID23-EH2: Gearing up for serial crystallography

2018/01/292018/02/01

ID23-EH2 is up and running, catering to small samples and serial crystallography experiments. Its small beam and unique diffractometer are the trademarks of this new MX beamline.

“This is amazing”, says David Drew, a user from Stockholm University, on the new ID23-EH2. “There is a perfect beam line to be screening LCP crystals. After 5 years working on this… it is amazing to be able to speed up finding the best spot to collect”, he adds. Drew and his team are on ID23-EH2. They are the first users since ID23-EH2 opened for business this month and have just started the experiment. He works with his team in transport proteins, which carry nutrients across membrane proteins and are important drug targets.

>Read more on the ESRF website

Picture: Max Nanao with the users from the University of Stockholm (Sweden).

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.

2017’s Top-10 Discoveries and Scientific Achievements

2017/12/272018/01/31

Each year we compile a list of the biggest advances made by scientists, engineers, and those who support their work at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory. From unraveling new details of the particle soup that filled the early universe to designing improvements for batteries, x-ray imaging, and even glass, this year’s selections span a spectrum of size scales and fields of science. Read on for a recap of what our passion for discovery has uncovered this year. (…)

4. Low-Temperature Hydrogen Catalyst

Brookhaven chemists conducted essential studies to decipher the details of a new low-temperature catalyst for producing high-purity hydrogen gas. Developed by collaborators at Peking University, the catalyst operates at low temperature and pressure, and could be particularly useful in fuel-cell-powered cars. The Brookhaven team analyzed the catalyst as it was operating under industrial conditions using x-ray diffraction at the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS). These operando experiments revealed how the configuration of atoms changed under different operating conditions, including at different temperatures. The team then used those structural details to develop models and a theoretical framework to explain why the catalyst works so well, using computational resources at Brookhaven’s Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN).

>Read more on the NSLS-II website