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Hydrogen fuel at half the cost? Scientists reveal a game-changing catalyst

Scientists developed a new tunable boron-doped cobalt phosphide catalyst with low cost and high efficiency for electrochemical water-splitting.

To reduce greenhouse gas emissions and combat climate change, the world urgently needs clean and renewable energy sources. Hydrogen is one such clean energy source that has zero carbon content and stores much more energy by weight than gasoline. One promising method to produce hydrogen is electrochemical water-splitting, a process that uses electricity to break down water into hydrogen and oxygen. In combination with renewable energy sources, this method offers a sustainable way to produce hydrogen and can contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gases.

Ultrathin conductor surpasses copper for more energy-efficient nanoelectronics

As computer chips continue to get smaller and more complex, the ultrathin metallic wires that carry electrical signals within these chips have become a weak link. Standard metal wires get worse at conducting electricity as they get thinner, ultimately limiting the size, efficiency, and performance of nanoscale electronics. In a paper published in Science, Stanford researchers show that niobium phosphide can conduct electricity better than copper in films that are only a few atoms thick. Moreover, these films can be created and deposited at sufficiently low temperatures to be compatible with modern computer chip fabrication. Their work could help make future electronics more powerful and more energy efficient. "We are breaking a fundamental bottleneck of traditional materials like copper," said Asir Intisar Khan, who received his doctorate from Stanford and is now a visiting postdoctoral scholar and first author on the paper.

Next generation computers: New wiring material could transform chip technology

The rapid technological advancements of our world have been enabled by our capacity to design and fabricate ever smaller electronic chips. These underpin computers, mobile phones and every smart device deployed to date. One of the many challenges is that electronic components generate increasingly more heat as they are miniaturized. A significant issue lies in making the wires which connect the transistors on the chip thinner while ensuring that the minimum amount of heat is released. These interconnects are typically made from copper, and as we start to scale them down to nano-scale thicknesses, their electrical resistance increases rapidly because the electrons moving along the wires have a higher probability of colliding into the surface of the wire. Known as scattering, this leads to energy being released in the form of waste heat, meaning you need more power to maintain the same level of performance.

Mo-doped Ni₂P nanorings boost seawater electrolysis for hydrogen production

Burning fossil fuels has led to a global energy crisis, worsening pollution and climate change. To tackle this problem, we must explore cleaner energy alternatives. One promising solution is the use of water electrolysis technology (electrolyzer) powered by renewable electricity to produce high-purity hydrogen (H₂) fuel. Currently, most systems for producing hydrogen rely on pure water. However, the limited availability of pure water makes it difficult to scale up this technology. On the other hand, seawater, which covers about 97% of the Earth's surface, offers an endless supply of hydrogen. Despite its abundance, using seawater for hydrogen production presents challenges due to its complex composition, which includes high amounts of salts like chloride, sodium, and magnesium.

Single-step procedure synthesizes air-stable, nickel-containing catalyst with safe, cheap materials

Transition metal phosphides have been dreamed of as a potential replacement for noble metal catalysts for a while now. They are cheaper and available in sufficient quantities. "But there have always been challenges with the surface oxidation and synthesis," says Dr. Constanze Neumann, Lise-Meitner group leader at the Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung in Mülheim. For example, their production required very high temperatures or reactive starting material that might be costly, highly toxic—or both. Together with her team, the young chemist has found an elegant method to provide a single-step procedure that relies on both safe and cheap materials to synthesize an air-stable, nickel-containing catalyst. The group has published their results in Angewandte Chemie International Edition.

New InP-based modulator with record-high bit rates could help move more data faster

As data traffic continues to increase, there is a critical need for miniaturized optical transmitters and receivers that operate with high-order multi-level modulation formats and faster data transmission rates. In an important step toward fulfilling this requirement, researchers have developed a new compact indium phosphide (InP)-based coherent driver modulator (CDM) and showed that it can achieve a record high baud rate and transmission capacity per wavelength compared to other CDMs. CDMs are optical transmitters used in optical communication systems that can put information on light by modulating the amplitude and phase before it is transmitted through optical fiber. "Services that require data capacity, such as video distribution and web conferencing services, have become widespread, and services that more enrich our lives are expected to be introduced in the future," said Josuke Ozaki from NTT Innovative Devices Corporation in Japan.

Brazilian scientists obtain a material that could be useful for hydrogen production

Hydrogen (H2) is considered a possible alternative to fossil fuels, which are responsible for a large proportion of atmospheric emissions and global warming, but production costs must be lowered if it is to become a viable option. In an article published in the journal Electrochimica Acta, scientists at the Center for Development of Functional Materials (CDMF), a Research, Innovation and Dissemination Center (RIDC) hosted at the Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar) in São Paulo state, Brazil, describe the synthesis of a nickel phosphide electrode that showed high efficiency in hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) electrocatalysis. This type of reaction, which is still costly, breaks down water molecules to release hydrogen ions in a process known as hydrolysis.

Single-emitter super-resolved imaging of radiative decay rate enhancement in dielectric gap nanoantennas

In an era where understanding and manipulating light at the nanoscale is increasingly crucial, a paper in Light: Science & Applications reveals a significant leap forward. A team of scientists from the Institut Langevin, ESPCI Paris, PSL University, CNRS have developed a sophisticated method to measure the enhancement of light interaction at the nanoscale using single molecules as probes. Central to this research are dielectric gap nanoantennas—developed and fabricated at the Imperial College London. Such structures are made of gallium phosphide (GaP), a material chosen for its high refractive index and low optical losses. This collaborative work involves an innovative approach using single molecules to probe the enhanced interaction of light facilitated purely by these nanoantennas without modification of the nanosystem with near-field probes, achieving a noticeable 30-fold enhancement in radiative decay rates at the single molecule level.

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