Chemistry

Researchers reported in Nature that they have engineered proteins to emit light in response to a combination of weak magnetic fields and pulses of energy at radio frequencies. This could set the stage for tracking proteins in the body with MRI-like instruments with less powerful magnets. The technology could allow researchers to track disease-linked proteins…

Researchers at Nanjing University published a new study in Environmental and Biogeochemical Processes describing a method for treating perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) in water. By introducing a small amount of formic acid into a UV-activated persulfate system, the researchers increased defluorination from 27% to 89% in 24 hours. The best results required acidic conditions (pH 2.5),…

In 1986, Leonard Rome and Nancy Kedersha discovered vaults, barrel-shaped particles made naturally by human cells, at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Despite studying the particles since their discovery, Rome and other scientists have failed to find their purpose. Now, scientists at the Broad Institute are using the mysterious structures to record the…

For 139 years, the Coca-Cola formula has been the gold standard of trade-secret-based intellectual property. A trade secret so guarded it became modern mythology. But this January, a YouTuber with a borrowed mass spectrometer technology offered a recipe that he says is a near replica that one can make at home. Zach Armstrong (aka “LabCoatz”)…

An international research team led by scientists from the University of Rostock, CNRS-École Polytechnique in France, and Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf has discovered a previously unknown form of superionic water. The team experimentally discovered a highly electrically conductive phase at the European XFEL X-ray laser near Hamburg, Germany, and the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) at SLAC…

Scientists pumped approximately 16,200 gallons of sodium hydroxide into the Gulf of Maine. It was the final phase of a study on a climate intervention that could simultaneously mitigate global warming and ocean acidification.  Earth’s oceans absorb about one-third of human carbon emissions. However, as this carbon dioxide dissolves into the ocean, it reacts with…

DuPont’s Tychem 6000 SFR garment (pictured) earned an R&D 100 Award for solving a longstanding trade-off in protective clothing: chemical resistance versus flame protection. Previously, workers in oil and gas, petrochemical and chemical manufacturing had to choose one or the other, or layer garments and deal with significant heat stress. The Tychem 6000 SFR provides…

DuPont Water Solutions’ FilmTec Fortilife XC160 membrane, a 2025 R&D 100 Award winner in the Mechanical/Materials category, tackles a challenge traditional reverse osmosis can’t: concentrating wastewater streams up to 16% salt. At that salinity, osmotic pressure overwhelms conventional membranes, but the XC160’s underlying technology, developed over a decade and refined while awaiting scale-up, handles it.…

Researchers at Chonnam National University in South Korea have engineered an enzyme cascade that converts formaldehyde into L-glyceraldehyde, a chiral compound used as a building block in pharmaceutical synthesis and in routes to specialty sugars. The one-pot process runs in water under mild conditions and reached roughly 94% conversion efficiency, pointing to a potential approach…

Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar M. Yaghi were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry on Wednesday for the creation of molecular structures with spaces large enough for gases and other chemicals to flow through. These structures are called metal-organic frameworks (MOF) and can be used to harvest water from the air, capture carbon dioxide,…

Oak Ridge National Laboratory was named on 20 of the 2025 R&D 100 Awards, 17 as lead developer and three as co-developer.  The showing sets a new record for the lab, accounting for about one-fifth of all winners. Since the 1980s, ORNL has won more than 260 R&D 100 Awards Our sister publication engineering.com recently…

Richard Tapper, an Associate Research Specialist at Dow and the 2025 R&D Technician of the Year, sums up his test philosophy in visceral terms: “I work on fire-retardant materials, and when I approach a test, I am considering that this cable is on fire in my house. So, I am going to view the test…

Scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory built a first: berkelocene. It binds carbon to berkelium-249 and puts the atom between two substituted cyclooctatetraene-based ligands. The surprise? In this molecule, berkelium is tetravalent (Bk⁴⁺), not Tb-like as many models predicted. In plain terms: the berkelium atom ends up more positively charged than expected and bonds to…

Elsevier, founded in 1880, is going all in on AI and data. In addition to publishing, Elsevier now offers several databases, learning resources and AI tools all aimed at supporting researchers. The latest release in this vein is a new AI-powered search engine for its chemistry database, Reaxys, which represents a fresh take on its…

Chemists at the Ohio State University developed a new way to synthesize carbenes, essential components of drug synthesis and materials development. They published their findings in Science.  Their new method works by using iron as a metal catalyst with dichloride compounds that easily generate free radicals. These substrates form carbenes with various substituents. Then, the…

Researchers at MIT and the University of California, Santa Barbara, have identified compounds that activate a defense pathway inside cells infected by a virus. They believe these compounds could be used as antiviral drugs that will work against any virus. They published their findings in the journal Cell.  The compounds activate a defense system called…

This week in R&D, we’re watching emerging technologies for how we secure critical assets, treat chronic disease and discover novel materials. Highlights include a new self-driving lab that accelerates materials discovery tenfold and a collaboration between the British and French governments to protect GPS from jamming. In the AI space, Mira Murati, a former OpenAI…

Researchers at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) have developed a method to convert plastic waste into hydrogen, which can be used for clean energy. They published their findings in Engineering.  Using a photocatalyst to oxidize plastic  The researchers engineered a porous tungsten oxide (WO3) photoanode that interacts with polystyrene (PS) plastic. PS…

Researchers at the University of Edinburgh genetically reprogrammed E. coli to convert plastic into paracetamol, which is also known as acetaminophen (Tylenol). They published their findings in Nature Chemistry. The process could cut down on plastic waste while reducing emissions from traditional methods of creating paracetamol. Using bacteria to recycle plastic Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is…

Researchers at the University of Michigan developed a method to capture carbon dioxide and convert it into metal oxalates, which are used in cement production. They published their findings in Advanced Energy Materials.  Methodology: Lead catalyst Previous research has shown that lead can be used as a catalyst to convert carbon dioxide into metal oxalates.…

A recent paper published in Nature Materials  notes that warm rolling, the same core process that turns aluminum ingots into beverage-can stock, can strengthen silver and copper chalcogenides. It notes, for instance, that “narrow-gap semiconductor Ag2Se can be plastically manufactured by warm metalworking.” Yield and tensile strengths climb significantly in Ag₂Se, Cu₂Se, AgCuSe and AgCuS…

Cryogenic electron microscopy at resolutions of 2.9 to 3.1 Å has revealed that three bacterial non-coding RNAs can fold into large, symmetric multistrand assemblies without any protein assistance, researchers report in an article preview in Nature. Using cryogenic electron microscopy at resolutions of 2.9 Å (OLE), 3.1 Å (ROOL), and 3.0 Å (GOLLD), the researchers…

Scientists have engineered molecular catalysts that harvest readily available blue LED light (405 nm) to stitch together four‑membered ring structures, such as β‑lactams, the core of many antibiotics, and cyclobutanes, common components in agrochemicals, while working openly in air. One of the photoenzymes (VEnT1.3) achieved turnover numbers exceeding 1,300, while another (SpEnT1.3) demonstrated over 300 turnovers,…

Even with tariffs on the horizon, nearly six in ten specialty chemical suppliers aren’t padding inventories, Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates (SOCMA) found in its April survey. One-third (33%) of companies have taken action to frontload inventory; this includes 26% adding one to three months’ supply and 7% stockpiling four months or more.  The…

In a bid to decentralize and secure pharma supply chains, Ginkgo Bioworks and a consortium of partners have been awarded a $29 million contract by the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H). The two-year project, WHEAT, aims to develop a novel manufacturing platform using wheat germ cell-free expression systems (CFPS). The goal is to…