Rice scientists create tiny, water-based reactors for green chemistry

Researchers at Rice, including Ying Chen and Angel Martí, have developed a new method for performing chemical reactions using water instead of toxic solvents.
Photo Credit: Jeff Fitlow/Rice University.

Researchers at Rice University have developed a new method for performing chemical reactions using water instead of toxic solvents. The scientists created microscopic reactors capable of driving light-powered chemical processes by designing metal complex surfactants (MeCSs) that self-assemble into nanoscale spheres called micelles. This innovation could drastically reduce pollution in industries including pharmaceuticals and materials science, where harmful organic solvents are often necessary.

The new micellar technology represents a step forward in sustainable chemistry. These self-assembled micelles form in water, where their hydrophobic cores provide a unique environment for reactions, even with materials that are typically insoluble in water. The research team led by Angel Martí, professor and chair of chemistry at Rice, demonstrated that this system can efficiently perform photocatalytic reactions while eliminating the need for hazardous substances. The study was published in Chemical Science Feb. 10.

“Our findings show how powerful molecular design can be in tackling chemical sustainability challenges while maintaining high chemical performance,” Martí said. “We’ve created a tool that could transform how chemical reactions are performed, reducing environmental harm while increasing efficiency.”

UCLA researchers find high levels of the industrial chemical BTMPS in fentanyl

Image Credit: Colin Davis

A UCLA research team has found that drugs being sold as fentanyl contain high amounts of the industrial chemical bis(2,2,6,6-tetramethyl-4-piperidyl) sebacate, or BTMPS. This new substance of concern emerged in the illicit drug supply nearly simultaneously in multiple U.S. locations from coast-to-coast.

From June through October 2024, the team quantitatively tested samples of drugs sold as fentanyl that had high levels of the chemical, which belongs to a class of compounds called hindered amine light stabilizers and has a variety of applications including as a sealant, adhesive, and additive to plastics. 

The paper is published in the peer-reviewed journal JAMA.

“The emergence of BTMPS is much more sudden than previous changes in the illicit drug supply, and the geographic range where it was detected nearly simultaneously suggests it may be added at a high level in the supply chain,” said study lead Chelsea Shover, an assistant professor-in-residence at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. “This is concerning because BTMPS is not approved for human consumption, and animal studies have shown serious health effects such as cardiotoxicity and ocular damage, and sudden death at certain doses.” 

Women of Science: A Legacy of Achievement

Future generations to pursue their passions and break down barriers in the pursuit of knowledge.
Image Credit: Scientific Frontline stock image

Throughout history, women have made groundbreaking contributions to science, despite facing significant societal barriers and a lack of recognition. Their relentless pursuit of knowledge and innovation has shaped our understanding of the world and paved the way for future generations of scientists. This article celebrates the achievements of some of these remarkable women, highlighting their struggles and the impact of their work.

The women featured in this article, along with countless others throughout history, have made invaluable contributions to the advancement of science. Their achievements, often accomplished in the face of adversity and societal barriers, have shaped our understanding of the world and paved the way for future generations of scientists. These women demonstrate the power of perseverance, the importance of challenging established norms, and the profound impact that individual dedication can have on scientific progress. By recognizing and celebrating their legacies, we not only honor their contributions but also inspire future generations to pursue their passions and break down barriers in the pursuit of knowledge.

Recycling the unrecyclable

Recovered carbon fibers.
This might look like something you’d see on the floor of a barber’s shop, but it’s actually a clump of reclaimed carbon fibers. Photo Credit: ©2025 Jin et al.
(CC-BY-ND)

Epoxy resins are coatings and adhesives used in a broad range of familiar applications, such as construction, engineering and manufacturing. However, they often present a challenge to recycle or dispose of responsibly. For the first time, a team of researchers, including those from the University of Tokyo, developed a method to efficiently reclaim materials from a range of epoxy products for reuse by using a novel solid catalyst.

There’s a high chance you are surrounded by epoxy compounds as you read this. They are used in electronic devices due to their insulating properties; clothing such as shoes due to their binding properties and physical robustness; building construction for the same reason; and even in aircraft bodies and wind turbine blades for their ability to contain strong materials such as carbon fibers or glass fibers. It’s hard to overstate the importance of epoxy products in the modern world. But for all their uses, they inevitably have a downside: Epoxy compounds are essentially plastics and prove difficult to deal with after their use or at the end of the life of an epoxy-containing product.

Quantum mechanics helps with photosynthesis

First author Erika Keil and Prof. Jürgen Hauer in the lab.
Photo Credit: Andreas Heddergott / TUM

Photosynthesis - mainly carried out by plants - is based on a remarkably efficient energy conversion process. To generate chemical energy, sunlight must first be captured and transported further. This happens practically loss-free and extremely quickly. A new study by the Chair of Dynamic Spectroscopy at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) shows that quantum mechanical effects play a key role in this process. A team led by Erika Keil and Prof. Jürgen Hauer discovered this through measurements and simulations.

The efficient conversion of solar energy into storable forms of chemical energy is the dream of many engineers. Nature found a perfect solution to this problem billions of years ago. The new study shows that quantum mechanics is not just for physicists but also plays a key role in biology.

Photosynthetic organisms such as green plants use quantum mechanical processes to harness the energy of the sun, as Prof. Jürgen Hauer explains: “When light is absorbed in a leaf, for example, the electronic excitation energy is distributed over several states of each excited chlorophyll molecule; this is called a superposition of excited states. It is the first stage of an almost loss-free energy transfer within and between the molecules and makes the efficient onward transport of solar energy possible. Quantum mechanics is therefore central to understanding the first steps of energy transfer and charge separation.”

Tiny copper ‘flowers’ bloom on artificial leaves for clean fuel production

Solar fuel generator 
Image Credit: Virgil Andrei

Tiny copper ‘nano-flowers’ have been attached to an artificial leaf to produce clean fuels and chemicals that are the backbone of modern energy and manufacturing.

The researchers, from the University of Cambridge and the University of California, Berkeley, developed a practical way to make hydrocarbons – molecules made of carbon and hydrogen – powered solely by the sun.

The device they developed combines a light absorbing ‘leaf’ made from a high-efficiency solar cell material called perovskite, with a copper nanoflower catalyst, to convert carbon dioxide into useful molecules. Unlike most metal catalysts, which can only convert CO₂ into single-carbon molecules, the copper flowers enable the formation of more complex hydrocarbons with two carbon atoms, such as ethane and ethylene — key building blocks for liquid fuels, chemicals and plastics.

Almost all hydrocarbons currently stem from fossil fuels, but the method developed by the Cambridge-Berkeley team results in clean chemicals and fuels made from CO2, water and glycerol – a common organic compound – without any additional carbon emissions. The results are reported in the journal Nature Catalysis.

The metal that does not expand

Metal usually expands when heated
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Technische Universität Wien

Breakthrough in materials research: an alloy of several metals has been developed that shows practically no thermal expansion over an extremely large temperature interval.

Most metals expand when their temperature rises. The Eiffel Tower, for example, is around 10 to 15 centimeters taller in summer than in winter due to its thermal expansion. However, this effect is extremely undesirable for many technical applications. For this reason, the search has long been on for materials that always have the same length regardless of the temperature. Invar, for example, an alloy of iron and nickel, is known for its extremely low thermal expansion. How this property can be explained physically, however, was not entirely clear until now.

Now, a collaboration between theoretical researchers at TU Wien (Vienna) and experimentalists at University of Science and Technology Beijing has led to a decisive breakthrough: using complex computer simulations, it has been possible to understand the invar effect in detail and thus develop a so-called pyrochlore magnet – an alloy that has even better thermal expansion properties than invar. Over an extremely wide temperature range of over 400 Kelvins, its length only changes by around one ten-thousandth of one per cent per Kelvin.

New light-tuned chemical tools control processes in living cells

Jun Zhang, Laura Herzog and Yaowen Wu have found a way to control proteins in living cells.
Photo Credit: Shuang Li

A research group at Umeå University has developed new advanced light-controlled tools that enable precise control of proteins in real time in living cells. This groundbreaking research opens doors to new methods for studying complex processes in cells and could pave the way for significant advances in medicine and synthetic biology.

In our experiments, we were able to demonstrate precise control over several processes in the cell

“Cellular processes are complex and constantly change depending on when and where in the cell they occur. Our new chemical tool with light switches will make it easier to control processes in the cell and study how cells function in real time. We can also determine where we make such regulation with a resolution of micrometres within a cell or tissue”, says Yaowen Wu, professor at the Department of Chemistry and SciLifeLab Group leader at Umeå University.

The intricate choreography of what happens in a cell is based on the precise distribution and interaction of proteins over time and space. Controlling protein or gene function is a cornerstone of modern biological research. However, traditional genetic techniques such as CRISPR-Cas9 often operate on a longer time scale, which risks causing cells to adapt. In addition, the techniques lack the spatial and temporal precision required to study highly dynamic cellular processes.

Chemical looping turns environmental waste into fuel

As scientists search for sustainable alternatives to typical waste disposal methods, chemical looping technology promises to spawn a new energy cycle.
Photo Credit: Chokniti Khongchum

Turning environmental waste into useful chemical resources could solve many of the inevitable challenges of our growing amounts of discarded plastics, paper and food waste, according to new research. 

In a significant breakthrough, researchers from The Ohio State University have developed a technology to transform materials like plastics and agricultural waste into syngas, a substance most often used to create chemicals and fuels like formaldehyde and methanol. 

Using simulations to test how well the system could break down waste, scientists found that their approach, called chemical looping, could produce high-quality syngas in a more efficient manner than other similar chemical techniques. Altogether, this refined process saves energy and is safer for the environment, said Ishani Karki Kudva, lead author of the study and a doctoral student in chemical and biomolecular engineering at Ohio State. 

Astrochemists Determined the Ratio of Methane in the Gas and Dust of a Protostar

According to Anton Vasyunin, scientists have obtained important information about the composition of interstellar ice.
Photo Credit: UrFU press service

A team of scientists from the Laboratory of Astrochemical Research at UrFU has for the first time determined the amount of methane in gas and dust in the young star-forming region IRAS 23385+6053. The results of the study are important for understanding the mechanisms of formation of the prebiotically important methane molecule in space. The scientists published a description of the study in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. 

"Observations in the infrared provide a unique opportunity to simultaneously study interstellar gas and interstellar ice. This is not possible in other wavelength ranges. Thanks to the launch of the new James Webb Space Telescope, the quality of the infrared spectra of star-forming regions has been significantly improved and has made it possible to study the composition of interstellar ice and interstellar gas simultaneously with high precision. To analyze the spectra of the protostar IRAS 23385+6053 obtained from the telescope, we used the ISEAge facility of the Ural Federal University, which allows us to grow and study space ice analogs under conditions of ultra-high vacuum and ultra-low temperatures," said the author of the article, Ruslan Nakibov, a research laboratory assistant at the Laboratory of Astrochemical Research of the Ural Federal University.

Lavender oil for longer-lasting sodium-sulfur batteries

In the future, linalool, a main component of lavender, could help to make sodium-sulfur batteries more durable and efficient.
Photo Credit: Dan Meyers

Lavender oil could help solve a problem in the energy transition. A team from the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces has created a material from linalool, the main component of lavender oil, and sulfur that could make sodium-sulfur batteries more durable and powerful. Such batteries could store electricity from renewable sources.

It is a crucial question in the energy transition: how can electricity from wind power and photovoltaics be stored when it is not needed? Large batteries are one option. And sulfur batteries, in particular sodium-sulfur batteries offer several advantages over lithium batteries as stationary storage units. The materials from which they are made are much more readily available than lithium and cobalt, two essential components of lithium-ion batteries. The mining of these two metals also often damages the environment and locally causes social and political upheaval. However, sodium-sulfur batteries can store less energy in relation to their weight than lithium batteries and are also not as durable. Lavender oil with its main component linalool could now help to extend the service life of sodium-sulfur-batteries, as a team from the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces reports in the journal Small.  "It's fascinating to design future batteries with something that grows in our gardens," says Paolo Giusto, group leader at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces.

Powerful anticancer compound might also be the key to eradicating HIV

Study co-authors Jennifer Hamad and Owen McAteer prepare for a cellular assay, a lab technique used to study living cells. The assay will yield information about the location of EBC-46 compounds that have been introduced into cells in the lab.
Photo Credit: Paul Wender

A compound with the unpresuming designation of EBC-46 has made a splash in recent years for its cancer-fighting prowess. Now a new study led by Stanford researchers has revealed that EBC-46 also shows immense potential for eradicating human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections. 

Compared to similar-acting agents, EBC-46 excels at activating dormant cells where HIV is hiding, the study found. These “kicked” cells can then be targeted (“killed”) by immunotherapies to fully clear the insidious virus from the body. By pursuing this “kick and kill” strategy with EBC-46, researchers think achieving permanent elimination of HIV in patients—in other words, a cure—is possible.

"We’re pleased to report that EBC-46 performed extremely well in preclinical experiments as part of a ‘kick and kill’ therapeutic," said study senior author Paul Wender, the Bergstrom Professor of Chemistry at Stanford’s School of Humanities and Sciences. "While we still have a lot of work to do before treatments based on EBC-46 might reach the clinic, this study marks unprecedented progress toward the as-yet-unrealized goal of eradicating HIV.” 

Inorganic and biocatalysts work together to reduce CO2

First author Panpan Wang tested the catalysis cascade in the laboratory.
Photo Credit: Ruhr-Universität Bochum / Marquard

In a hybrid cascade, climate-damaging CO2 is turned back into valuable methanol. An international research team has shown how this works. 

In order to recover valuable substances from CO2, it must be reduced in many individual steps. If electrocatalysis is used for this, many potentially different potential molecules are formed, which cannot necessarily be used. Biocatalysts, on the other hand, are selective and only produce one product – but they are also very sensitive. An international research team led by Professor Wolfgang Schuhmann from the Center for Electrochemistry at Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany, and Dr. Felipe Conzuelo from the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal, has developed a hybrid catalysis cascade that makes use of the advantages of both processes. The researchers report in the journal “Angewandte Chemie Interational Edition” from December 23, 2024.

Team makes sustainable aviation fuel additive from recycled polystyrene

Illinois Sustainable Technology Center research scientist Hong Lu and his colleagues developed a method for converting waste polystyrene into a sustainable jet fuel additive, ethylbenzene. Their work overcomes a key obstacle to the wider use of sustainable aviation fuels.
Photo Credit: Fred Zwicky

A new study overcomes a key challenge to switching commercial aircraft in the U.S. from their near-total reliance on fossil fuels to more sustainable aviation fuels. The study details a cost-effective method for producing ethylbenzene — an additive that improves the functional characteristics of sustainable aviation fuels — from polystyrene, a hard plastic used in many consumer goods. 

The findings are reported in the journal ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering.  

Fuels derived from waste fat, oil, grease, plant biomass or other nonpetroleum sources lack sufficient levels of aromatic hydrocarbons, which help keep fuel systems operational by lubricating mechanical parts and swelling the seals that protect from leaks during normal operations, said Hong Lu, a research scientist at the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center who led the new research. ISTC is a division of the Prairie Research Institute at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. 

While ethylbenzene is an aromatic hydrocarbon and can be derived from fossil fuels, finding a sustainable way to produce it would aid the aviation industry’s conversion to sustainable jet fuels. 

One Step Coating Could Save Lives and Property

Image Credit: Rachel Barton/Texas A&M Engineering Communications

Although extremely flammable, cotton is one of the most commonly used textiles due to its comfort and breathable nature. However, in a single step, researchers from Texas A&M University can reduce the flammability of cotton using a polyelectrolyte complex coating. The coating can be tailored for various textiles, such as clothing or upholstery, and scaled using the common pad-dry coating process, which is suitable for industrial applications. This technology can help to save property and lives on a large scale. 

“Many of the materials in our day-to-day lives are flammable, and offering a solution to protect from fire benignly is difficult,” said Maya D. Montemayor, a graduate student in the Department of Chemistry at Texas A&M and the publication’s lead author. “This technology can be optimized to quickly, easily and safely flame retard many flammable materials, offering vast protection in everyday life, saving money and lives of the general population.” 

Current studies developing flame retardant coatings deposited via polyelectrolyte complexation require two or more steps, increasing the time and cost to coat a material effectively. 

New protective coating can improve battery performance

Mario El Kazzi and his team have developed a cathode surface coating that enables operating voltages of up to 4.8 volts.
Photo Credit: © Paul Scherrer Institute PSI/Mahir Dzambegovic

A research team at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI has developed a new sustainable process that can be used to improve the electrochemical performance of lithium-ion batteries. Initial tests of high-voltage batteries modified in this way have been successful. This method could be used to make lithium-ion batteries, for example those for electric vehicles, significantly more efficient.

Lithium-ion batteries are considered a key technology for decarbonization. Therefore, researchers around the world are working to continuously improve their performance, for example by increasing their energy density. “One way to achieve this is to increase the operating voltage,” says Mario El Kazzi from the Center for Energy and Environmental Sciences at Paul Scherrer Institute PSI. "If the voltage increases, the energy density also increases.”

However, there is a problem: At operating voltages above 4.3 volts, strong chemical and electrochemical degradation processes take place at the transition between the cathode, the positive pole, and the electrolyte, the conductive medium. The surface of the cathode materials gets severely damaged by the release of oxygen, dissolution of transition metals, and structural reconstruction – which in turn results in a continuous increase in cell resistance and a decrease in capacity. This is why commercial battery cells, such as those used in electric cars, have so far only run at a maximum of 4.3 volts.

Finding New Chemistry to Capture Double the Carbon

An established carbon capture solvent can form clusters that could significantly increase the amount of carbon dioxide stored. 
Credits: Photo by Andrea Starr; Composite Graphic by Cortland Johnson
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Finding ways to capture, store, and use carbon dioxide (CO2) remains an urgent global problem. As temperatures continue to rise, keeping CO2 from entering the atmosphere can help limit warming where carbon-based fuels are still needed.

Significant progress has been made in creating affordable, practical carbon capture technologies. Carbon-capturing liquids, referred to as solvents when they are present in abundance, can efficiently grab CO2 molecules from coal-fired power plants, paper mills, and other emission sources. However, these all work through the same fundamental chemistry. Or so researchers assumed.

In a new work published in Nature Chemistry, scientists were surprised to find that a familiar solvent is even more promising than originally anticipated. New details about the solvent’s underlying structure suggest that the liquid could hold twice as much CO2 as previously thought. The newly revealed structure could also hold the key to creating a suite of carbon-based materials that could help keep even more CO2 out of the atmosphere.

The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) team developed the solvent several years ago and has studied it in a variety of scenarios. The team has worked to dial down the costs of using the solvent and turn up its efficiency. Last year, they revealed the least costly carbon capture system to date. It was during this research that the team noticed something odd.

Chemical reactions can scramble quantum information as well as black holes

Rice University theorist Peter Wolynes and collaborators at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have shown that molecules can be as formidable at scrambling quantum information as black holes.
Image Credit: Courtesy of Martin Gruebele; DeepAI was used in image production

If you were to throw a message in a bottle into a black hole, all of the information in it, down to the quantum level, would become completely scrambled. Because in black holes this scrambling happens as quickly and thoroughly as quantum mechanics allows, they are generally considered nature’s ultimate information scramblers.

New research from Rice University theorist Peter Wolynes and collaborators at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, however, shows that molecules can be as formidable at scrambling quantum information as black holes. Combining mathematical tools from black hole physics and chemical physics, they have shown that quantum information scrambling takes place in chemical reactions and can nearly reach the same quantum mechanical limit as it does in black holes. The work is published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“This study addresses a long-standing problem in chemical physics, which has to do with the question of how fast quantum information gets scrambled in molecules,” Wolynes said. “When people think about a reaction where two molecules come together, they think the atoms only perform a single motion where a bond is made or a bond is broken.

Unleashing Disordered Rocksalt Oxides as Cathodes for Rechargeable Magnesium Batteries

Schematics of the battery and present cathode material. The present material contains many metal elements as cations thanks to the effect of the high configurational entropy.
Illustration Credit: ©Tohoku University

Researchers at Tohoku University have made a groundbreaking advancement in battery technology, developing a novel cathode material for rechargeable magnesium batteries (RMBs) that enables efficient charging and discharging even at low temperatures. This innovative material, leveraging an enhanced rock-salt structure, promises to usher in a new era of energy storage solutions that are more affordable, safer, and higher in capacity.

Details of the findings were published in the Journal of Materials Chemistry. 

The study showcases a considerable improvement in magnesium (Mg) diffusion within a rock-salt structure, a critical advancement since the denseness of atoms in this configuration had previously impeded Mg migration. By introducing a strategic mixture of seven different metallic elements, the research team created a crystal structure abundant in stable cation vacancies, facilitating easier Mg insertion and extraction.

This represents the first utilization of rocksalt oxide as a cathode material for RMBs. The high-entropy strategy employed by the researchers allowed the cation defects to activate the rocksalt oxide cathode.

Electrochemistry helps clean up electronic waste recycling, precious metal mining

A new study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign shows how electrochemistry can be used to extract precious metals from discarded electronics in an efficient and environmentally friendly manner. 
Photo Credit: Fred Zwicky

A new method safely extracts valuable metals locked up in discarded electronics and low-grade ore using dramatically less energy and fewer chemical materials than current methods, report University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign researchers in the journal Nature Chemical Engineering. 

Gold and platinum group metals such as palladium, platinum and iridium are in high demand for use in electronics. However, sourcing these metals from mining and current electronics recycling techniques is not sustainable and comes with a high carbon footprint. Gold used in electronics accounts for 8% of the metal’s overall demand, and 90% of the gold used in electronics ends up in U.S. landfills yearly, the study reports. 

The study, led by chemical and biomolecular engineering professor Xiao Su, describes the first precious metal extraction and separation process fully powered by the inherent energy of electrochemical liquid-liquid extraction, or e-LLE. The method uses a reduction-oxidation reaction to selectively extract gold and platinum group metal ions from a liquid containing dissolved electronic waste.