Capturing carbon dioxide from the hot industrial exhaust of cement and steel plants requires cooling the exhaust from around 200 C to 60 C so that liquid amines can react with the CO2. UC Berkeley chemists have created a new type of metal-organic framework that captures CO2 at high temperatures, avoiding the need to expend energy and water to cool the exhaust. The MOF opens up a new field of high-temperature gas capture.

Researchers at New York University have devised a mathematical approach to predict the structures of crystals—a critical step in developing many medicines and electronic devices—in a matter of hours using only a laptop, a process that previously took a supercomputer weeks or months. Their novel framework is published in the journal Nature Communications.

Water, a molecule essential for life, has unusual properties — known as anomalies — that define its behaviour. However, there are still many enigmas about the molecular mechanisms that would explain the anomalies that make the water molecule unique. Deciphering and reproducing this particular behaviour of water in different temperature ranges is still a major challenge for the scientific community. Now, a study presents a new theoretical model capable of overcoming the limitations of previous methodologies to understand how water behaves in extreme conditions. The paper, featured on the cover of The Journal of Chemical Physics, is led by Giancarlo Franzese and Luis Enrique Coronas, from the Faculty of Physics and the Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology of the University of Barcelona (IN2UB).