The Advanced Photon Source
a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science User Facility

Producing alcohol from captured carbon emissions could help fight climate change and aid the burgeoning renewable carbon economy. Using the Advanced Photon Source, a group of scientists have shown that adding barium oxide to catalysts can significantly increase the production of alcohol over unwanted byproducts. 

Perovskite-type minerals are environmentally friendly and fairly efficient catalysts, but to improve the rate for widespread use, scientists need to understand which characteristics most influence the catalyst's efficiency. Researchers have demonstrated that the transformation of the catalyst surface under electrolysis conditions drives the increase in oxygen evolution reaction activity.

Rare-earth (RE) sesquioxides have several properties that could be harnessed for a variety of different applications, from biomedical to electronic technology. Researchers used the Advanced Photon Source to investigate how the structures of two different RE sesquioxides changed as they cooled from a melted state. 

A group of physicists and computer scientists has developed a machine learning strategy that can extract charge density wave (CDW) – an ordered modulation of electrons – and intra-unit-cell (IUC) parameters from high volumes of X-ray diffraction data at multiple temperatures. The team's approach, called X-TEC (X-ray diffraction temperature clustering), exploits the fundamental role that temperature plays in both long-range and short-range structural correlations. 

The characteristics of soil affect not just plants but the microbes that live in soil, like those that break down nitrogen. Changing the properties of soil will impact the soil's microbial population, and could allow us to intentionally influence microbe behavior. Researchers have synthesized a soil-inspired material and quantified its features. They demonstrate that the new material could be advantageous to humans in a wide range of applications. 

Researchers have developed a new mechanism to understand and tune the negative thermal expansion in metal-organic frameworks. These results provide scientists a new pathway for controlling negative thermal expansion in these frameworks and should ultimately lead to new thermal materials that are tailored to particular temperature environments.

Scientists have demonstrated that sparse concentrations of nanoparticles can impact the flow of heat energy through solid materials. While this early work was based around a simple ice model, it paves the way for research towards more advanced, complex and efficient thermal insulation materials.

Organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs) can allow the blending of electronics and biology in applications including flexible biosensors and other forms of wearable electronics. But OECTs still face some hurdles before becoming as versatile as their more traditional silicon counterparts. A research group led by Northwestern University has developed a new type of complementary logic OECT that addresses these issues by using a unique vertical architecture.

To better understand the structural folding dynamics of a certain protein on microsecond-time scales, researchers probed this unfolding pathway with time-resolved X-ray solution scattering, using the resources of the Advanced Photon Source. The results indicate the formation of an intermediate phase on the time scale of 1 microsecond, which undergoes complete unfolding within 5 microseconds.

In a collaborative project that used the resources of the Advanced Photon Source, researchers focused on how SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, makes functional viral proteins from two large polyproteins that are encoded by its viral RNA genome. Gaining insights into the process through which viral proteases cleave polyproteins into functional protein pieces is crucial for understanding the SARS-CoV-2 infection cycle.

Making Better Drugs by Controlling Membrane Mechanics:  Cellular membranes are the body's wall of defense against invaders, with the tricky task of blocking the bad guys while letting beneficial molecules come and go. Measurements obtained at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Photon Source paint a detailed picture of how a potential membrane-targeting treatment protects cells from pathogens, providing insights that could bolster the next generation of pharmaceutical defenses.