University Research | U.S. DOE Office of Science (SC)

New Catalyst Does More With Less Platinum

Platinum is a highly reactive and in-demand catalyst across the chemical and energy industries, but a team of University of Wisconsin-Madison and Georgia Institute of Technology scientists could reduce the world’s dependence on this scarce and expensive metal.

Chemists at Carnegie Mellon University Develop New Methods to “See” Internal Structures of Macroporous Hydrogels

Two novel methods will allow researchers to develop new “smart” materials.

Brown University Chemists Contribute to Opening of ‘Molecular Movie’

Brown University researchers worked with scientists at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory to image the first stages of a key chemical reaction as it happens.

Making a Better Semiconductor

Research led by Michigan State University scientists developed a method that will more easily allow an electrical current to pass through materials, possibly leading to new and improved semiconductors.

Bats Do It, Dolphins Do It...Now Humans Can Do It, Too

University of California, Berkeley, physicists have used graphene to build lightweight ultrasonic loudspeakers and microphones, enabling people to mimic bats or dolphins’ ability to use sound to communicate and gauge the distance and speed of objects around them.

Why Do Puddles Stop Spreading?

Simple everyday phenomenon was unexplained by physics — until now.

Making the Biofuels Process Safer for Microbes

A team of investigators at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Michigan State University have created a process for making the work environment less toxic—literally—for the organisms that do the heavy lifting in the increasingly important field of bioproducts derived from cellulosic biomass.

Perennial Biofuel Crops Use Water at Levels Similar to Corn

The study, led by GLBRC scientist and Michigan State University professor of ecosystem ecology Stephen Hamilton, is the first multi-year effort to compare the water use of conventional corn crops to the perennial cropping systems of switchgrass, miscanthus, native grasses, restored prairies, and hybrid poplar trees.

Mak to Receive Department of Energy Early Career Research Program Funding

Kin Fai Mak, assistant professor of physics in Eberly College of Science at Penn State, has been selected by the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Science to receive funding for his research as part of the DOE's Early Career Research Program.

Physicists Fine Tune Control of Agile Exotic Materials

Physicists at the University of California, San Diego, have found a way to control the length and strength of waves of atomic motion that have promising potential uses such as fine-scale imaging and the transmission of information within tight spaces.

A Natural Light Switch

MIT scientists, working with colleagues in Spain, have discovered and mapped a light-sensing protein that uses vitamin B12 to perform key functions, including gene regulation.

Researchers Create First Entropy-Stabilized Complex Oxide Alloys

Researchers from North Carolina State University and Duke University have created the first entropy-stabilized alloy that incorporates oxides – and demonstrated conclusively that the crystalline structure of the material can be determined by disorder at the atomic scale rather than chemical bonding.