Tag Chemistry
Making molecules comfy: Ultimate challenge for UW’s ‘Glass Guy’
"If you ask an ordinary person, ‘What is glass?’ they will point to a window, but glass is a much broader category of materials,” says Mark Ediger. Read More
Statewide contest challenges Wisconsin students to grow crystals
The 3rd annual Wisconsin Crystal Growing Contest is now enrolling middle school, high school and home schooled students for the contest that starts March 1. Read More
Lithium battery component found to harm key soil microorganism
The growing use of nanoscale materials in the rechargeable batteries that power portable electronics and electric vehicles may have untold environmental consequences. Read More
Scientists: Harnessing microbes could help solve hunger, health, chemical and energy problems
Tim Donohue, a UW–Madison bacteriology professor and director of the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, joined 17 other scientists from around the world and representing a wide range of disciplines today (Oct. 28, 2015) to lay out a case for an organized approach to harnessing the power of microbes to tackle many of the world’s most pressing problems. Read More
Mother-of-pearl’s genesis identified in mineral’s transformation
How nature makes its biominerals - things like teeth, bone and seashells - is a playbook scientists have long been trying to read. Read More
Tickets available Oct. 1 for Shakhashiri’s science show
There’s only one place that you can find Bucky Badger, Mike Leckrone, and Santa Claus himself doing science experiments – in Professor Bassam Shakhashiri’s lab. Shakhashiri, a professor of chemistry at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, will host his 46th annual holiday science presentation – “Once Upon a Christmas Cheery, In the Lab of Shakhashiri” – on Dec. 5 and 6. Read More
Discovery of a highly efficient catalyst eases way to hydrogen economy
Hydrogen could be the ideal fuel: Whether used to make electricity in a fuel cell or burned to make heat, the only byproduct is water; there is no climate-altering carbon dioxide. Read More
Three UW–Madison professors garner American Chemical Society honors
The American Chemical Society (ACS) has honored three UW–Madison professors with prestigious awards for excellence in research. Read More
Sustainable nanotechnology center lands new $20 million contract
The Center for Sustainable Nanotechnology, a multi-institutional research center based at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, has inked a new contract with the National Science Foundation (NSF) that will provide nearly $20 million in support over the next five years. Read More
Boundless Together: The research behind the commercial
A new commercial for UW–Madison will premier during the season-opening Badger football game on Aug. 5. Learn more about the cutting-edge research highlighted in the spot. Read More
Solar textile collaboration weaves chemistry and design
A new faculty member at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Marianne Fairbanks is bringing decades of experience with dyes, fibers and design to the development of a technology she's been dreaming of for years: the solar textile. Read More
Cages offer new direction in sustainable catalyst design
University of Wisconsin–Madison engineers have developed a new approach to structuring the catalysts used in essential reactions in the chemical and energy fields. The advance offers a pathway for industries to wean themselves off of platinum, one of the scarcest metals in the earth's crust. Read More
Molecular fuel cell catalysts hold promise for efficient energy storage
In the quest for better, less expensive ways to store and use energy, platinum and other precious metals play an important role. They serve as catalysts to propel the most efficient fuel cells, but they are costly and rare. Read More
University Summer Forums invite community members to study chemistry, Chinese painting
The University of Wisconsin–Madison opens its doors to the community with the annual University Summer Forums from June through August. Offered free to the public, these four-week academic courses feature leading UW–Madison professors in an engaging classroom setting. Read More
Better battery imaging paves way for renewable energy future
In a move that could improve the energy storage of everything from portable electronics to electric microgrids, University of Wisconsin–Madison and Brookhaven National Laboratory researchers have developed a novel X-ray imaging technique to visualize and study the electrochemical reactions in lithium-ion rechargeable batteries containing a new type of material, iron fluoride. Read More
Solution-grown nanowires make the best lasers
Take a material that is a focus of interest in the quest for advanced solar cells. Discover a "freshman chemistry level" technique for growing that material into high-efficiency, ultra-small lasers. The result, disclosed today [Monday, April 13] in Nature Materials, is a shortcut to lasers that are extremely efficient and able to create many colors of light. Read More
Researchers develop new approach that combines biomass conversion, solar energy conversion
In a study published March 9 in Nature Chemistry, University of Wisconsin–Madison chemistry Professor Kyoung-Shin Choi presents a new approach to combine solar energy conversion and biomass conversion, two important research areas for renewable energy. Read More
No joke: Chemistry thesis transmuted into comic book
As thesis writing approached, University of Wisconsin–Madison graduate student Veronica Berns faced a conundrum. She knew how hard it was to describe her work to friends and family — indeed, anybody outside the tight clan of structural chemists. And that was particularly true since she concentrated on a category of should-be-impossible structures called “quasicrystals.” However, Berns liked drawing and using “normal, English-language words,” and so about a year before graduation, she opted to accompany her traditional Ph.D. thesis with a comic book version. Read More
Chemical dial controls attraction between water-repelling molecules
Abbott, Gellman and a group of University of Wisconsin–Madison researchers have provided new insights on hydrophobic interactions within complex systems. In a study published today in the journal Nature, the researchers show how the nearby presence of polar (water-attracted, or hydrophilic) substances can change the way the nonpolar hydrophobic groups want to stick to each other. Read More
UW grant program seeds promising ideas, like safer batteries
State Economic Engagement & Development (SEED) grants are administered by the Office of Industrial Partnerships to support research that interests a researcher and a spinoff he or she founded. During fiscal year 2015, its first year, SEED started disbursing $700,000 to five laboratories. The next round of grants is budgeted at $625,000, and applications are due Feb. 15. Read More