EES Blog

A greener approach to gas transport: EES article in Chemistry World

05 Dec 2012

Gas storage, both long and short term, is an expensive and energy intensive process, which has left the use of isolated natural gas reserves and gas sequestration plans unfeasible. However, an international collaboration of scientists has developed a way of storing gas in ‘bioclathrates’ formed from fruit and vegetables.

Clathrate hydrates are a form of clathrate compound in which a guest molecule is trapped inside a crystalline cage of ordered, hydrogen bonded water molecules and can form around a large number of low molecular weight gases, such as methane and CO₂. Unfortunately, the formation of clathrate hydrates is very slow and requires high pressures to introduce the gas into the water, and low temperatures to form the ice-like structures. This leaves it no more energy efficient than standard methods of gas storage, such as liquefaction and compression into porous sorbents.

Vegetables and fungi were used to accelerate the kinetics of clathrate storage

Interested to know more? Read the full article in Chemistry World here…

Read the article from EES:

Gas storage in renewable bioclathrates
Weixing Wang , Chao Ma , Pinzhen Lin , Luyi Sun and Andrew I. Cooper
Energy Environ. Sci., 2013, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C2EE23565J

Fancy submitting an article to EES? Then why not submit to us today.

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Flexible conductive paper with applications from solar cells to touch screens

26 Nov 2012

By Heather Montgomery, Deputy Editor.

Scientists in the US and Sweden have produced a highly transparent and flexible paper that they coated with tin-doped indium oxide to make it conductive, so it can be used as a substrate for flexible solar cells. The material can be produced on a large scale at low cost, with an environmentally friendly, solution-based process.

Read more about this exciting research in this HOT EES article:

Transparent and Conductive Paper From Nanocellulose Fibers
Liangbing Hu, Guangyuan Zheng, Jie Yao, Nian Liu, Ben Daniel Weil, Yi Cui , Martin Eskilsson, Erdem Karabulut, Lars Wagberg, Zhichao Ruan, Shanhui Fan, Jason Bloking and Michael D. McGehee
DOI: 10.1039/C2EE23635D

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Excellent research by young investigator recognised by EES

23 Nov 2012

By Heather Montgomery, Deputy Editor.

We are delighted to announce that Professor Kisuk Kang of Seoul National University (SNU) has been chosen by the Energy & Environmental Science Board to receive the inaugural Energy & Environmental Science prize for an excellent research paper published in EES by an outstanding young scientist. Professor Kang’s article “Flexible energy storage devices based on graphene paper” was selected from a strong shortlist of papers that had also received a lot of attention from the community.

Kang is professor of materials science and engineering at SNU where he also received his B.S. His Ph.D at MIT was on the design of electrode materials for lithium batteries. Before he joined to SNU, he was a professor at KAIST, Korea. His research lab at SNU focuses on developing new materials for LIB or post-Li battery chemistries such as Na, Mg batteries and metal-air batteries using combined experiments and ab initio calculations.

As part of his prize Kang will give an EES sponsored lecture – watch this space for more details.

Read this exciting research today:

Flexible energy storage devices based on graphene paper
Hyeokjo Gwon, Hyun-Suk Kim, Kye Ung Lee, Dong-Hwa Seo, Yun Chang Park, Yun-Sung Lee, Byung Tae Ahn and Kisuk Kang
Energy Environ. Sci., 2011, 4, 1277-1283
DOI: 10.1039/C0EE00640H

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Nanomaterials role in removing pollutants from the environment

21 Nov 2012

By Heather Montgomery, Deputy Editor.

Scientists based in Singapore have reviewed the application of nanomaterials in removing chemical and biological pollutants from the environment in this fascinating Energy & Environemntal Science article. Their review has recently been highlighted on nanowerk.

Read the review in full:

A review on nanomaterials for environmental remediation
Mya Mya Khin, A. Sreekumaran Nair, V. Jagadeesh Babu, Rajendiran Murugan and Seeram Ramakrishna
DOI: 10.1039/C2EE21818F

Table of contents image

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11th International Conference on Materials Chemistry

19 Nov 2012

By Heather Montgomery, Deputy Editor.

Submit an oral abstract for The 11th International Conference on Materials Chemistry (MC11), the flagship event of the RSC’s Materials Chemistry Division – deadline Friday 7th December.

This cutting edge international research conference is organised around four exciting and diverse areas of the application of materials chemistry:
• Energy Materials – including all aspects of Materials Chemistry related to energy generation, conversion and storage.
• Environmental Materials – the design, synthesis and applications of materials that facilitate processes to provide a sustainable environment.
• Biomaterials – materials for tissue engineering and healthcare, green biomaterials and advanced synthesis methods of biomaterials.
• Electronic, Magnetic and Optical Materials – encompassing inorganic, organic, hybrid and nano materials, soft matter and interfaces.

Why take part in MC11?

There are over 100 opportunities for oral presentations over four parallel sessions. So you can share your own research with the more than 400 expected participants during the four-day event. There will also be plenty of opportunity for discussion during poster session receptions, lunches and coffee breaks, all taking place in the dedicated conference centre.

If you take part in this conference you will have the benefit of hearing and networking with an excellent line-up of plenary and keynote speakers, all experts in their fields.

All academic and industrial scientists working on the chemistry, physics and materials science of functional materials, including students, are encouraged to be there. Visit www.rsc.org/mc11 for full details.

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Sensitive nanogenerators for portable electronics powered by body movements or the wind

12 Nov 2012

By Heather Montgomery, Deputy Editor.

Scientists in the Republic of Korea have sandwiched an organic piezoelectric material – poly(vinylidene fluoride trifluoroethylene) [P(VDF-TrFE)] – between two graphene electrodes to make a fully flexible, rollable, stretchable, foldable and twistable nanogenerator.
The output voltage of the nanogenerator is up to 30 times that of a rigid nanogenerator when exposed to the same input sound waves and 8 times higher in the same air flow.
The team says that stretchable power generators could easily be transferred to fabrics, including clothes and flags for example, allowing them to harness energy from people’s movement or the wind.

Read the full details of this exciting research in Energy & Environmental Science:

Highly Sensitive Stretchable Transparent Piezoelectric Nanogenerator
Ju-Hyuck Lee, Keun Young Lee, Brijesh Kumar, Nguyen Thanh Tien, Nae_Eung Lee and Sang-Woo Kim
DOI: 10.1039/C2EE23530G

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HOT EES Communication:Ultra-efficient solar cells proposed

09 Nov 2012

By Heather Montgomery, Deputy Editor.

An EES article on a model system for achieving highly efficient solar cells which comprise lots of independent stacked units which rival the state of the art for cell performance when irradiated from the side has been featured on e! Science News.

To date systems of this type are made from direct band gap III–V semiconductors connected in series, which is much more complex to engineer.

Read more about this fascinating research today:

Multiple-bandgap vertical-junction architectures for ultra-efficient concentrator solar cells
Avi Braun, Alexis Vossier, Eugene A. Katz, Nicholas J. Ekins-Daukes and Jeffrey M. Gordon
DOI: 10.1039/C2EE22167E

Table of contents image

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First simultaneous conversion hemicellulose and cellulose to biofuel

05 Nov 2012

By Heather Montgomery, Deputy Editor.

To date, when making biofuel from non-food source biomass (for example corn stover – maize leaves and stalks), the hemicellulose and cellulose need to be separated before processing because of their different chemical and physical properties.

Now, US scientists have reported a system that allows them to be processed together; only a single reactor is required and no pre-treatment is needed (pre-treatment and extraction/separation steps can account for up to 30% of the capital cost of a biofuel plant, they say). The breakdown product of both materials, gamma-valerolactone, is also used as the solvent, which means that there is no need for solvent separation at the end of the process.

Read this HOT EES Communication in full today:

Integrated conversion of hemicellulose and cellulose from lignocellulosic biomass
David Martin Alonso, Stephanie Wettstein, Max Mellmer, Elif Gurbuz and James Dumesic
DOI: 10.1039/C2EE23617F

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Challenges in Chemical Renewable Energy (ISACS12) – Call for Abstracts

01 Nov 2012

By Heather Montgomery, Deputy Editor.

We are proud to announce that the significant International Symposia on Advancing the Chemical Sciences (ISACS) series will return in 2013 to include Challenges in Chemical Renewable Energy (ISACS12) on 3-6 September in Cambridge, UK.

Abstracts are now invited for this event so submit today and take advantage of this exceptional opportunity to present your work alongside scientists from across the globe.

For details of speakers and conferences themes, please visit the dedicated website.

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ChemComm Symposium on Chemistry and Sustainable Energy – register today

01 Nov 2012

By Heather Montgomery, Deputy Editor.

The 6th ChemComm International Symposium will take place in Brazil on 5th and 8th November 2012, the first ever RSC Journal Roadshow to take place in South America. Attendance at the symposium is free of charge and student participation is strongly encouraged. Please register your interest in attending the meeting on the conference website.

The theme for the meetings is Chemistry and Sustainable Energy. Two one-day meetings will be held:

Monday 5 November 2012 – FAPESP, São Paulo
Thursday 8 November 2012 – COPPE-UFRJ, Rio de Janeiro

Each one day meeting will feature a selection of stimulating lectures reflecting the academic and industrial breadth of green chemistry, biofuels, sustainable energy, bioprocess including photosynthesis and catalysis (organic chemistry), delivered by internationally recognised researchers. The first one-day meeting will be held at FAPESP, São Paulo. The second one-day meeting will be held in COPPE-UFRJ, Rio de Janeiro.

Confirmed speakers:

Chris Hardacre, Queen’s University Belfast
Erwin Reisner, Cambridge University
Nick Turner, Manchester University
Karen Wilson, Cardiff University
Carlos H. Brito Cruz, Scientific Director, FAPESP
Igor Polikarpov, IFSC-USP
Sidney Ribeiro, IQ-UNESP
Liane Rossi, IQ-USP
Ulf Schuchardt, IQ-UNICAMP
Glaucia Souza, IQ-USP
Elba Bon, IQ-UFRJ
Jairton Dupont, IQ-UFRGS
Elena Gousevskaya, IQ-UFMG
Jerson Lima, IQ-UFRJ & FAPERJ
Claudio Motta, IQ-UFRJ

More details about the meeting and how to register are available on the conference website.

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A greener approach to gas transport: EES article in Chemistry World

Flexible conductive paper with applications from solar cells to touch screens

Excellent research by young investigator recognised by EES

Nanomaterials role in removing pollutants from the environment

11th International Conference on Materials Chemistry

Sensitive nanogenerators for portable electronics powered by body movements or the wind

HOT EES Communication:Ultra-efficient solar cells proposed

First simultaneous conversion hemicellulose and cellulose to biofuel

Challenges in Chemical Renewable Energy (ISACS12) – Call for Abstracts

ChemComm Symposium on Chemistry and Sustainable Energy – register today

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