Matter and energy from Science Daily Feed

In recent years, more than 60 countries have developed strategies to stimulate the market ramp-up of hydrogen, particularly in the industrial sector. However, in 2023, less than ten percent of the originally announced green hydrogen production was realized, shows a new study. The main reason: hydrogen remains expensive and there is little willingness to pay the cost.

Water droplets under freezing conditions do not spontaneously detach from surfaces as they do at room temperature due to stronger droplet-surface interaction and lack of an energy transformation pathway. Since accumulated droplets or ice have to be removed manually or with mechanical equipment, which is costly and inefficient, preventing droplet accretion on surfaces is both scientifically intriguing and practically important. Researchers have now invented a ground-breaking self-powered mechanism of freezing droplet ejection that allows droplets to shoot themselves away, paving the way for cost-efficient and promising technological applications.

Researchers have developed a drastically smaller and more energy efficient method of creating coveted photon pairs that influence each other from any distance. The technology could transform computing, telecommunications, and sensing.

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 can reduce the flammability of cotton using a polyelectrolyte complex coating.

Bats depend on open bodies of water such as small ponds and lakes for foraging and drinking. Access to water is particularly important for survival in the increasingly hot and dry summers caused by climate change, the time when female bats are pregnant and rear their young. A scientific team has now shown that access to drinking sites is hampered by wind turbines in agricultural landscapes: Many bat species avoid the turbines and water bodies located close to the turbines for several kilometers.

Scientists have succeeded in controlling the structure and function of biological membranes with the help of 'DNA origami'. The system they developed may facilitate the transportation of large therapeutic loads into cells. This opens up a new way for the targeted administration of medication and other therapeutic interventions. Thus, a very valuable instrument can be added to the toolbox of synthetic biology.

In a significant step toward creating a sustainable and circular economy, researchers have demonstrated that carbon nanotube (CNT) fibers can be fully recycled without any loss in their structure or properties. This discovery positions CNT fibers as a sustainable alternative to traditional materials like metals, polymers and the much larger carbon fibers, which are notoriously difficult to recycle.

A thorough analysis of market, technological, and supply chain outcomes for sodium-ion batteries finds that significant advances are needed before commercialization.

Scientists have taken a major step forwards in tackling one of the greatest abiding challenges in chemistry, by learning how to program the self-assembly of molecules in such a way that the end result is predictable and desirable. Their 'Malteser-like' molecules could one day have a suite of applications -- from highly sensitive and specific sensors, to next-gen, targeted drug delivery agents.

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 has developed a hybrid catalysis cascade that makes use of the advantages of both processes.

Giving people better data about their energy use, plus some coaching, can help them substantially reduce their consumption and costs, according to a new study.

The process of updating deep learning/AI models when they face new tasks or must accommodate changes in data can have significant costs in terms of computational resources and energy consumption. Researchers have developed a novel method that predicts those costs, allowing users to make informed decisions about when to update AI models to improve AI sustainability.

It's long been known that different positions on the football field fit different body types. A study led by the University of Kansas has gone beyond knowing that linemen are bigger with more body mass than receivers and tested a team of college football starters, finding differences in strength, power, jumping ability and more. The findings could help improve strength training designed to optimize performance for different types of players, researchers argue.

A new study overcomes a key obstacle to switching commercial aircraft 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 use of plastic has skyrocketed over the past decade. Recent statistics reveal that in 2021, each person in the European Union (EU) generated an average of 36 kg of plastic packaging waste.

Radiation testing suggests that solar cells made from carbon-based, or organic, materials could outperform conventional silicon and gallium arsenide for generating electricity in the final frontier, a study suggests.

A research team found a key indicator for the chemical activity of acoustic microbubbles and a correlation between the temperature of a liquid and that of the microbubbles generated.

Alloying, the art of blending metals with other elements, has long been a cornerstone of materials science and metallurgy, creating materials with tailored properties. In contrast, dealloying has been known primarily as a corrosive process that degrades materials over time by selectively removing elements, weakening their structure. Now, researchers have turned these two seemingly counteracting processes into an innovative harmonic synthesis concept.

Researchers have developed a new process that uses microwave flow reaction and recyclable solid catalysts to efficiently hydrolyze polysaccharides into simple sugars. The developed device utilizes a continuous-flow hydrolysis process, where cellobiose is passed through a sulfonated carbon catalyst that is heated using microwaves, resulting in the efficient conversion of cellobiose to glucose.

Researchers have demonstrated that the direction of the spin-polarized current can be restricted to only one direction in a single-atom layer of a thallium-lead alloys when irradiated at room temperature. The discovery defies conventions: single-atom layers have been thought to be almost completely transparent, in other words, negligibly absorbing or interacting with light. The one-directional flow of the current observed in this study makes possible functionality beyond ordinary diodes, paving the way for more environmentally friendly data storage, ultra-fine two-dimensional spintronic devices, in the future.