http://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. (Phys.org) —Bacteria are often associated with their disease-causing capacity or alternatively, with their role as normal residents of the human body, where they perform duties essential to health. http://phys.org/news283595912.html Technology Wed, 27 Mar 2013 09:38:40 EST news283595912 (Phys.org)—Be it a battery or a fuel cell, efficient electrodes are the be-all and end-all of every electrochemical cell. In the journal Angewandte Chemie, a team of Korean and American scientists has now introduced a novel material for electrodes based on affordable melamine foam and carbon black. The high porosity significantly facilitates fast mass transport and a high number of catalytically active centers drastically increase the oxygen-reducing activity of cathodes for fuel cells and metal-air batteries. http://phys.org/news275040533.html Chemistry Tue, 18 Dec 2012 08:09:00 EST news275040533 (Phys.org)—The cherished portability of many popular electronics, from smart phones to laptops, mostly comes courtesy of lithium-ion batteries. Unfortunately, these dense and lightweight energy storage devices begin to degrade over time, steadily losing total capacity even when sitting idle on the shelf. Scaling up this promising technology to better power electric vehicles or facilitate grid-scale storage demands battery lifetimes longer than a decade—and fundamental advances in lithium-ion engineering. http://phys.org/news273224880.html Chemistry Tue, 27 Nov 2012 07:48:38 EST news273224880 (Phys.org)—Though not often considered beyond the plasma television, small-scale microplasmas have great utility in a wide variety of applications. Recently, new developments have begun to capitalize on how these microplasmas interact with liquids in applications ranging from killing bacteria for sterilizing a surface to rapidly synthesizing nanoparticles. http://phys.org/news269622317.html Physics Tue, 16 Oct 2012 16:05:29 EST news269622317 Engineers at Case Western Reserve University have made an electrochemical cell that uses a plasma for an electrode, instead of solid pieces of metal. http://phys.org/news238323860.html Chemistry Thu, 20 Oct 2011 10:04:43 EST news238323860 An Illinois research team has succeeded in overcoming one major obstacle to a promising technology that simultaneously reduces atmospheric carbon dioxide and produces fuel. http://phys.org/news237138901.html Chemistry Thu, 06 Oct 2011 16:55:16 EST news237138901 Measuring a fuel cell's overall performance is relatively easy, but measuring its components individually as they work together is a challenge. That's because one of the best experimental techniques for investigating the details of an electrochemical device while it's operating is x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Traditional XPS works only in a vacuum, while fuel cells need gases under pressure to function. http://phys.org/news205505617.html Physics Tue, 05 Oct 2010 13:56:33 EST news205505617 Scientists have been hard at work harnessing the power of microbes as an attractive source of clean energy. Now, Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University researcher Dr. Prathap Parameswaran and his colleagues have investigated a means for enhancing the efficiency of clean energy production by using specialized bacteria. http://phys.org/news194632488.html Technology Tue, 01 Jun 2010 18:10:01 EST news194632488 Thanks to two technologies developed by Professor Benoit Marsan and his team at the Universite du Quebec a Montreal (UQAM) Chemistry Department, the scientific and commercial future of solar cells could be totally transformed. Professor Marsan has come up with solutions for two problems that, for the last twenty years, have been hampering the development of efficient and affordable solar cells. http://phys.org/news189784618.html Nanotechnology Tue, 06 Apr 2010 14:57:29 EST news189784618 (PhysOrg.com) -- A tiny electrochemical cell, developed by researchers of the MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology, The Netherlands, is able to mimick the behaviour of medicine inside a human body. This chip is presented in the journal Lab on a Chip. http://phys.org/news159795004.html Chemistry Fri, 24 Apr 2009 12:30:44 EST news159795004