Most of the world's fertilizer is produced in large manufacturing plants, which require huge amounts of energy to generate the high temperatures and pressures needed to combine nitrogen and hydrogen into ammonia.
Biochemistry
May 5, 2020
2
189
Researchers seeking to develop self-healing hydrogels have long sought to mimic the natural ability of mussels to generate strong, flexible threads underwater that allow the mussels to stick to rocks.
Materials Science
Dec 24, 2019
3
158
Microbes can be engineered to produce a variety of useful compounds, including plastics, biofuels, and pharmaceuticals. However, in many cases, these products compete with the metabolic pathways that the cells need to fuel ...
Biotechnology
Dec 2, 2019
0
152
Friction results from a set of complex processes that act together to resist relative motion. Despite this complexity, friction is often described using simple phenomenological expressions that relate normal and lateral forces ...
Scientists using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have confirmed the presence of electrically-charged molecules in space shaped like soccer balls, shedding light on the mysterious contents of the interstellar medium (ISM) - ...
Astronomy
Jun 25, 2019
104
22
Using the Submillimeter Array (SMA), astronomers have conducted a molecular line study of the protoplanetary disk Oph-IRS 67, uncovering essential information about its chemical structure. Results of this study were presented ...
Indiana University researchers have created a powerful new molecule for the extraction of salt from liquid. The work has potential to help increase the amount of drinkable water on Earth.
Materials Science
May 23, 2019
3
366
The world's oceans soak up about a quarter of the carbon dioxide that humans pump into the air each year—a powerful brake on the greenhouse effect. In addition to purely physical and chemical processes, a large part of ...
Earth Sciences
Apr 29, 2019
11
445
The use of efficient catalytic agents is what makes many technical procedures feasible in the first place. Indeed, synthesis of more than 80 percent of the products generated in the chemical industry requires the input of ...
Materials Science
Feb 18, 2019
0
83
When Rice University chemist and engineer Hossein Robatjazi set out to marry a molecular sieve called MOF to a plasmonic aluminum nanoparticle two years ago, he never imagined the key would be the same process nature uses ...
Materials Science
Feb 8, 2019
0
100
