| An international team of scientists, led by the University of Manchester, has developed a metal-organic framework, or MOF, material that provides a selective, fully reversible and repeatable capability to capture a toxic air pollutant, nitrogen dioxide, produced by combusting diesel and other fossil fuels. | |
| The material then requires only water and air to convert the captured gas into nitric acid for industrial use. The mechanism for the record-breaking gas uptake by the MOF, characterized by researchers using neutron scattering at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, could lead to air pollution control and remediation technologies that cost-effectively remove the pollutant from the air and convert it into nitric acid for use in producing fertilizer, rocket propellant, nylon and other products. | |
| As reported in Nature Chemistry (“Capture of nitrogen dioxide and conversion to nitric acid in a porous metal-organic framework”), the material, denoted as MFM-520, can capture atmospheric nitrogen dioxide at ambient pressures and temperatures—even at low concentrations and during flow—in the presence of moisture, sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide. Despite the highly reactive nature of the pollutant, MFM-520 proved capable of being fully regenerated multiple times by degassing or by treatment with water from the air—a process that also converts the nitrogen dioxide into nitric acid. |
Image Credit: ORNL
News This Week
“Bigger than DNA” — how AI is transforming the pharma industry
Artificial intelligence hit a big milestone in January — the first drug designed entirely using artificial intelligence entered human clinical trials. The compound, created by Oxford-based biotech company Exscientia, is aimed at treating obsessive-compulsive [...]
Achilles’ heel of ALL viruses? Scientists discover holy grail which could lead to UNIVERSAL vaccine
Researchers at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in the US have uncovered the ‘Achilles’ heel’ of most viruses which plague mankind, and could soon develop a universal vaccine. Vaccine research, development and testing takes [...]
Small world: atom-scale materials are the next tech frontier
Every age in the history of human civilisation has a signature material, from the Stone Age, to the Bronze and Iron Ages. We might even call today’s information-driven society the Silicon Age. Since the [...]
Human textiles to repair blood vessels
What if we could replace a patient's damaged blood vessels with brand new ones produced in a laboratory? This is the challenge set by Inserm researcher Nicolas L'Heureux, who is working on the human [...]
CRISPR cancer trial finds that gene-edited immune cells are safe
CRISPR gene-edited immune cells have been injected into three people with advanced cancer without any serious side effects, the first trial of its kind in the US. It is also the first CRISPR cancer [...]
Updated – Worldwide Press for “Human Brain/Cloud Interface”
“We’ll have nanobots that… connect our neocortex to a synthetic neocortex in the cloud. Our thinking will be a…. biological and non-biological hybrid.” Ray Kurzweil, TED 2014 UPDATE - February 9 2020 Since [...]
NanoApps Athletics Inc. Established
Frank Boehm (NanoApps Medical Inc. founder) and Amanda Scott (NA CEO) join NanoApps Athletics Inc. NanoApps Athletics Inc proposes a unique synergistic biochemical/nanomedical strategy for the expedited repair and healing of Achilles tendon micro [...]
Jamilee Baroud Podcast – Frank Boehm (NA Founder) Interview
In her inaugural podcast, Jamilee interviews Frank Boehm of NanoApps Medical Inc and NanoApps Athletics Inc. From Jamilee's podcast: Welcome to the first episode of "In a Click". On todays show I chat with [...]
A megalibrary of nanoparticles
Using straightforward chemistry and a mix-and-match, modular strategy, researchers have developed a simple approach that could produce over 65,000 different types of complex nanoparticles, each containing up to six different materials and eight segments, [...]
Nano-thin flexible touchscreens could be printed like newspaper
Researchers have developed an ultra-thin and ultra-flexible electronic material that could be printed and rolled out like newspaper, for the touchscreens of the future. The touch-responsive technology is 100 times thinner than existing touchscreen [...]
The strange link between the human mind and quantum physics
Nobody understands what consciousness is or how it works. Nobody understands quantum mechanics either. Could that be more than coincidence? "It is hard to avoid the implication that consciousness and quantum mechanics are [...]
The University of Queensland confident it can develop a vaccine for coronavirus
The University of Queensland (UQ) is confident it can develop a vaccine for the potentially deadly coronavirus in as few as 16 weeks are two more people in Brisbane are monitored for the virus. [...]
Walking with atoms
Ever since it was proposed that atoms are building blocks of the world, scientists have been trying to understand how and why they bond to each other. Be it a molecule (which is a [...]
3D printing with applications in the pharmaceutical industry
University of Seville researchers, in collaboration with the University of Nottingham, have managed to create the first image of nanoparticles of stabilised gold with biodegradable and biocompatible systems that have been obtained with 3D-printng [...]
Fighting drug-resistant superbugs with bacteria-shredding nanoparticles
Researchers have used liquid metals to develop new bacteria-destroying technology that could be the answer to the deadly problem of antibiotic resistance. The technology uses nano-sized particles of magnetic liquid metal to shred bacteria [...]
Team Builds the First Living Robots
A book is made of wood. But it is not a tree. The dead cells have been repurposed to serve another need. Now a team of scientists has repurposed living cells—scraped from [...]
