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Categories: Chemistry: Organic Chemistry, Environmental: Wildfires

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Used lithium-ion batteries from cell phones, laptops and a growing number of electric vehicles are piling up, but options for recycling them remain limited mostly to burning or chemically dissolving shredded batteries. Researchers have improved on approaches that dissolve the battery in a liquid solution in order to reduce the amount of hazardous chemicals used in the process. This simple, efficient and environmentally-friendly solution overcomes the main obstacles presented by previous approaches.

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Researchers have devised a way to produce chemicals used in medicine and agriculture for a fraction of the usual cost. Using oxygen as a reagent and copper as a catalyst to break organic molecules' carbon-carbon bonds and convert them into amines, which are widely used in pharmaceuticals. Traditional metal catalysis uses expensive metals such as platinum, silver, gold and palladium, but the researchers used oxygen and copper -- an abundant base metal.

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In 2020 and 2021, California experienced fire activity unlike anything recorded in the modern record. When the smoke cleared, the amount of burned forest totaled ten times more than the annual average going back to the late 1800s. We know that wildlife in western forests evolved with changing habitat and disturbances like wildfire. Each species responds differently, some benefiting from openings, others losing critical habitat. What we don't know is how increasing fire severity at large scales is impacting their habitat and survival, because many species are not adapted to these types of 'megafires.'

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Researchers have developed a new method for the accurate determination of the water content of water-soluble compounds. This plays a significant role in various areas, including determining drug dosages.

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Global measurements and model calculations show that the complex relationship between the chemistry and climate impact of aerosol particles can be successfully captured by a simple formula.

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Bio-based plastics often end up in recycling streams because they look and feel like conventional plastic, but the contamination of these compostable products makes it much harder to generate functional material out of recycled plastic. Scientists have now developed a biology-driven process to convert these mixtures into a new biodegradable material that can be used to make fresh products. The scientists believe the process could also enable a new field of biomanufacturing wherein valuable chemicals and even medicines are made from microbes feeding off of plastic waste.

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The remarkable proton and oxide-ion (dual-ion) conductivities of hexagonal perovskite-related oxide Ba7Nb3.8Mo1.2O20.1 are promising for next-generation electrochemical devices. The unique ion-transport mechanisms they unveiled will hopefully pave the way for better dual-ion conductors, which could play an essential role in tomorrow's clean energy technologies.

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A team of pioneering researchers has made a significant leap forward in the complex world of molecular chemistry. Their focus? Azaarenes, unique molecular puzzle pieces crucial to many everyday products, from eco-friendly agrochemicals to essential medicines. The team developed an innovative way to modify these molecules using light-powered enzymes -- a groundbreaking discovery that holds promise for new industrially relevant chemical reactions and sustainable energy solutions.

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A new paper pinpoints obstacles and suggests strategies for getting more prescribed fire on the ground in the wildfire-prone U.S. West.

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Protein cages found in nature within microbes help weather its contents from the harsh intracellular environment -- an observation with many bioengineering applications. Researchers recently developed an innovative bioengineering approach using genetically modified bacteria; these bacteria can incorporate protein cages around protein crystals. This in-cell biosynthesis method efficiently produces highly customized protein complexes, which could find applications as advanced solid catalysts and functionalized nanomaterials.

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Electrochemical catalysts used in water splitting often show poor performance due to low electrical conductance of (oxy)hydroxide species produced in situ. To overcome this challenge, researchers have now designed an electrode with Schottky Junction formed at the interface of metallic Ni-W5N4 and semiconducting NiFeOOH. The proposed electrode shows excellent catalytic activity and can facilitate industrial seawater splitting continuously for 10 days.

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Artificial intelligence (AI) is on the rise. Until now, AI applications generally have 'black box' character: How AI arrives at its results remains hidden. A cheminformatics scientist has now developed a method that reveals how certain AI applications work in pharmaceutical research. The results are unexpected: the AI programs largely remembered known data and hardly learned specific chemical interactions when predicting drug potency.

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Wildfires and drought have led to $11.2 billion in damages to privately held timberland in California, Oregon and Washington over the past two decades, a new Oregon State University study found.

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A floating, solar-powered device that can turn contaminated water or seawater into clean hydrogen fuel and purified water, anywhere in the world, has been developed by researchers.

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High-intensity, often catastrophic, wildfires have become increasingly frequent across the Western U.S. Researchers quantified the value of managed low-intensity burning to dramatically reduce the risk of such fires for years at a time.

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In the same way that chatbots sometimes 'hallucinate,' or make things up, machine learning models designed for scientific applications can sometimes present misleading or downright false results. Researchers now present a new statistical technique for safely using AI predictions to test scientific hypotheses.

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Researchers have developed a new method to image polymerization catalysis reactions one monomer at a time. 

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Scientists used their expertise in quantum biology, artificial intelligence and bioengineering to improve how CRISPR Cas9 genome editing tools work on organisms like microbes that can be modified to produce renewable fuels and chemicals.

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Most wildfires in boreal forests, such as those in Canada, are caused by lightning strikes, according to a study aimed at attributing fire ignition sources globally. 

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Liquid metals could be the long-awaited solution to 'greening' the chemical industry, according to researchers who tested a new technique they hope can replace energy-intensive chemical engineering processes harking back to the early 20th century.