Chemists to develop new materials for hydrogen storage in vehicles

The U.S. Department of Energy recently awarded Berkeley Lab a three-year, $2.1 million grant for the project, which will also include contributions by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and General Motors (GM). The grant was part of more than $7 million awarded by DOE last month for hydrogen storage technologies in fuel cell electric vehicles.

“We’re working on materials called metal-organic frameworks to increase the capacity of hydrogen gas in a pressure cylinder, which would be the fuel tank,” said Jeffrey Long, a Berkeley Lab scientist who co-leads the project along with Berkeley Lab chemist Martin Head-Gordon. “With these materials, we’re working on storing the hydrogen without the use of very high pressures, which will be safer and also more efficient without the significant compression energy losses.”

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are three-dimensional sponge-like framework structures that are composed primarily of carbon atoms and are extremely lightweight. “What’s very special about these materials is that you can use synthetic chemistry to modify the surfaces within the materials and make it attractive for hydrogen to stick on the surface,” Long explained.

Separately, Long is also using MOFs in a carbon capture project, in which the material would selectively absorb carbon dioxide over nitrogen. For the fuel cell project, the trick lies not in getting the MOF to select hydrogen out of a mixture but to store as much hydrogen as possible.

Currently, vehicles using hydrogen fuel cells can achieve a range of close to 300 miles—but only if the hydrogen is stored at extremely high pressures (600 to 700 bar), which is expensive and potentially unsafe. It is also energy intensive to pressurize the hydrogen.

So far Long has succeeded in more than doubling hydrogen capacity, but only at very low temperatures (around 77 Kelvin, or -321 Fahrenheit). “It’s still very much basic research on how to create revolutionary new materials that would boost the capacity by a factor of four or five at room temperature,” he said. “We have an idea of what kinds of frameworks we might make to do this.”

Long’s approach is to create frameworks with lightweight metal sites on the surface, making it attractive for hydrogen molecules to bind to the sites. “Our approach has been to make some of the first metal-organic frameworks that have exposed metal cations on the surface,” he said. “Now we need to figure out ways of synthesizing the materials so that instead of one hydrogen molecule we can get two or three or even four hydrogen molecules per metal site. Nobody’s done that.”

This is where Head-Gordon, a computational chemist, comes in. He will work on theoretical understanding of MOFs so that he can try to predict their hydrogen storage properties and then instruct Long’s team as to what kind of material to synthesize. “He can do calculations on a lot of different target structures and say, here’s the best one for you guys to spend time trying to make, because synthetic chemistry is very cost and labor intensive,” Long said.

The scientist at GM will aid in providing accurate high-pressure measurements. The NIST scientist is an expert in neutron diffraction and neutron spectroscopy, which will allow Long and his team to pinpoint where exactly the hydrogen is going and verify that it is binding to the metals.

Provided by University of California - Berkeley (news : web)

Portable device will quickly detect pathogens

Using synthetic DNA, Dan Luo, professor of biological and environmental engineering, has devised a method of "amplifying" very small samples of pathogen DNA, RNA or proteins. Edwin Kan, professor of electrical and computer engineering, has designed a computer chip that quickly responds to the amplified samples targeted by Luo's method. They will combine these to make a handheld device, usable under harsh field conditions, that can report in about 30 minutes what would ordinarily require transporting samples to a laboratory and waiting days for results.

The work will be supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as part of the Grand Challenge program to develop "point-of-care diagnostics" for developing countries. The foundation has distributed $25 million to 12 teams, selected from more than 700 applicants. Various teams are working on different aspects of the technology, and eventually their work will be integrated to make a practical, low-cost testing kit, Luo said.

Luo's research group has found that DNA can be used like molecular-level Lego blocks. A single strand of DNA will lock onto another single strand that has a complementary genetic code. By synthesizing DNA strands that match over just part of their length, his team can assemble unusual shapes -- in this case, a Y. Attached to the base of the Y is a DNA strand or antibody designed to lock onto a pathogen. Attached to one of the upper arms is a molecule that will polymerize -- chain up with other similar molecules -- when exposed to ultraviolet light.

When a pathogen is added to a solution of these Y-DNA molecules, the matching receptors on the stem of the Y will lock onto pathogen molecules, but only onto part of them; the mix will contain two different Y-structures, each tagged to lock onto a different part of the pathogen molecule. The result, when the targeted pathogen is present, is the formation of many double-Ys linked together by a pathogen molecule, each assembly carrying two molecules capable of polymerizing.

When the mixture is exposed to a portable ultraviolet light, the polymer molecules at the ends of each double-Y link to those on other double-Ys, forming long chains that clump up into larger masses. This polymerization won't happen, the researchers emphasize, unless a targeted pathogen is present to link two Ys together. A single Y with only one polymer molecule attached can only link to one other single Y, and no chain will form.

Kan's new chip measures both the mass and charge of molecules that fall on it. The large clumps of Y-DNA have a much larger mass and charge than single molecules, and trigger the detector. The chip uses the popular and inexpensive CMOS technology compatible with other common electronic devices. A detector might, for example, be controlled and powered by a mobile phone, Luo suggested.

All this can be combined with nanofluidics to make a robust battery-operated testing kit, the researchers said. After further development they plan to conduct tests simulating field conditions in the developing world. Along with surviving hot or cold weather, Luo said, "It has to work in dirty water."

Provided by Cornell University (news : web)

Scorpions inspire scientists in making tougher surfaces for machinery

Zhiwu Han, Junqiu Zhang, Wen Li and colleagues explain that "solid particle erosion" is one of the important reasons for material damage or equipment failure. It causes millions of dollars of damage each year to helicopter rotors, rocket motor nozzles, turbine blades, pipes and other mechanical parts. The damage occurs when particles of dirt, grit and other hard material in the air, water or other fluids strike the surfaces of those parts. Filters can help remove the particles but must be replaced or cleaned, while harder, erosion-resistant materials cost more to develop and make. In an effort to develop better erosion-resistant surfaces, Han and Li's group sought the secrets of the yellow fattail scorpion for the first time. The scorpion evolved to survive the abrasive power of harsh sandstorms.

They studied the bumps and grooves on the scorpions' backs, scanning the creatures with a 3-D laser device and developing a computer program that modeled the flow of sand-laden air over the scorpions. The team used the model in computer simulations to develop actual patterned surfaces to test which patterns perform best. At the same time, the erosion tests were conducted in the simple erosion wind tunnel for groove surface bionic samples at various impact conditions. Their results showed that a series of small grooves at a 30-degree angle to the flowing gas or liquid give steel surfaces the best protection from erosion.

More information: Erosion Resistance of Bionic Functional Surfaces Inspired from Desert Scorpions, Langmuir, Article ASAP. DOI:10.1021/la203942r

Abstract
In this paper, a bionic method is presented to improve the erosion resistance of machine components. Desert scorpion (Androctonus australis) is a typical animal living in sandy deserts, and may face erosive action of blowing sand at a high speed. Based on the idea of bionics and biologic experimental techniques, the mechanisms of the sand erosion resistance of desert scorpion were investigated. Results showed that the desert scorpions used special microtextures such as bumps and grooves to construct the functional surfaces to achieve the erosion resistance. In order to understand the erosion resistance mechanisms of such functional surfaces, the combination of computational and experimental research were carried out in this paper. The Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) method was applied to predict the erosion performance of the bionic functional surfaces. The result demonstrated that the microtextured surfaces exhibited better erosion resistance than the smooth surfaces. The further erosion tests indicated that the groove surfaces exhibited better erosion performance at 30° injection angle. In order to determine the effect of the groove dimensions on the erosion resistance, regression analysis of orthogonal multinomials was also performed under a certain erosion condition, and the regression equation between the erosion rate and groove distance, width, and height was established.

Provided by American Chemical Society (news : web)

Could Alzheimer's disease be diagnosed with a simple blood test?

Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of adult onset dementia and is characterized by the degeneration of the nervous system. In particular, as the disease progresses, the amount of amyloid-ß peptide in the body rises. At present, the most reliable and sensitive diagnostic techniques are invasive, e.g. require analysis of cerebrospinal fluid (the liquid that surrounds the brain and spinal cord). However, white blood cells (or mononuclear leukocytes) are also thought to carry amyloid-ß peptide in Alzheimer patients.

The researchers used two-dimensional infrared spectroscopy to measure and compare the infrared radiation emitted or absorbed by white blood cells of healthy controls, versus those of patients with mild, moderate and severe Alzheimer's disease. A total of 50 patients with Alzheimer's and 20 healthy controls took part in the study and gave blood samples.

The authors found significant differences in the range of infrared wavelengths displayed between subjects, which were attributable to the different stages of formation of amyloid-ß structures in the blood cells. The results showed that, with this method, healthy controls could be distinguished from mild and moderate sufferers of Alzheimer's disease. The method is being explored as a tool for early diagnosis.

The authors conclude: "The method we used can potentially offer a more simple detection of alternative biomarkers of Alzheimer's disease. Mononuclear leukocytes seem to offer a stable medium to determine ß-sheet structure levels as a function of disease development. Our measurements seem to be more sensitive for earlier stages of Alzheimer's disease, namely mild and moderate."

More information: Carmona P et al (2012). Infrared spectroscopic analysis of mononuclear leukocytes in peripheral blood from Alzheimer's disease patients. Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry; DOI 10.1007/s00216-011-5669-9

Provided by Springer