news 2022

Seven million Christmas trees end up in landfill in the UK each year, releasing an estimated 100,000 tonnes of harmful greenhouse gases into the atmosphere New research has found a more efficient, simplified process for using pine needles to produce formic acid, for use in hydrogen fuel cells, as a food preservative and in agricultural and industrial manufacturing Pine needles collected after Christmas and processed in this way could be used to

Researchers have used gold extracted from electronic waste as catalysts for reactions that could be applied to making medicines. Re-using gold from electronic waste prevents it from being lost to landfill, and using this reclaimed gold for drug manufacture reduces the need to mine new materials. Current catalysts are often made of rare metals, which are extracted using expensive, energy-intensive and damaging mining processes.

Rock samples from the Jezero crater analysed by the Perseverance rover show evidence of liquid water and signatures that could be organic compounds. A study published in Science analyses multiple rocks found at the bottom of Jezero Crater on Mars, where the Perseverance rover landed in 2020, revealing significant interaction between the rocks and liquid water.

A Bath discovery opens a new route for measuring and controlling hot electrons. The hope is that more energy will be available to power solar cells. A new way of extracting quantitative information from state-of-the-art single molecule experiments has been developed by physicists at the University of Bath.

The Winchcombe meteorite, a rare carbonaceous meteorite which crashed onto a driveway in Gloucestershire, has been found to contain extra-terrestrial water and organic compounds that reveal insights into the origin of Earth's oceans. A new study led by experts from the Natural History Museum and the University of Glasgow reports the orbital history and first laboratory analyses of the Winchcombe meteorite, which was recovered only hours after its spectacular fireball lit up the skies over the UK in February 2021.

Imperial and chemical company BASF will reveal new techniques for optimising experimental design at leading machine learning conference NeurIPS. Three papers outlining new machine learning techniques that address important needs in the chemical industry have been judged ground-breaking enough to win acceptance at the NeurIPS conference, one of the most competitive international venues for research in machine learning.

Here's a batch of fresh news and announcements from across Imperial. From materials research that could help with the development of low-power next-generation technologies, to the discovery of a biological pathway that may explain the underlying mechanisms of Alzheimer's disease, here is some quick-read news from across the College.

Researchers have devised a cheaper, more efficient, and sustainable way to produce a breast cancer drug in South Africa. The method is designed to facilitate the development of local pharmaceutical manufacturing capabilities in South Africa that could serve the country and its neighbours. We were able to find a more efficient way to manufacture lapatinib..

Researchers have found that the irregular movement of lithium ions in next-generation battery materials could be reducing their capacity and hindering their performance. The team, led by the University of Cambridge, tracked the movement of lithium ions inside a promising new battery material in real time.

Researchers at a Scottish university have found a way to use tiny particles of gold to measure the maturity of whisky, which could help distillers with one of the key challenges in the production process. Chemists and bioscientists from the University of Glasgow developed the test, which harnesses a unique property of cask-aged whisky to measure its maturity.

An early step in metabolic evolution enabled the emergence of ATP as the universal energy carrier, setting the stage for the origin of life, finds a new study led by UCL researchers. According to the findings published in PLOS Biology , a simple two-carbon compound may have been a crucial player in the evolution of metabolism before the advent of cells.

Researchers from University of Manchester used graphene as an electrode to measure both the electrical force applied on water molecules and the rate at which these break in response to such force. The researchers found that water breaks exponentially faster in response to stronger electrical forces.

Research over the past two decades has culminated in a -new and promising- approach to developing drugs to treat cardio-metabolic diseases. Diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke and heart disease are examples of cardio-metabolic diseases, which are on the rise around the world. For more than 20 years, scientists in Leeds and Germany have been trying to understand the role that calcium ions - chemical messengers between cells - could play in triggering ill-health.

Scientists have discovered how a chemical in the cells of marine organisms enables them to survive the high pressures found in the deep oceans. The deeper that sea creatures live, the more inhospitable and extreme the environment they must cope with. In one of the deepest points in the Pacific - the Mariana Trench, 11 kilometers below the sea surface - the pressure is 1.1 kbar or eight tons per square inch.

Researchers have studied how certain bacteria perform photosynthesis using low-energy light, which could be engineered into crops to boost production. By studying the way two bacteria perform the difficult chemistry of photosynthesis, a team led by researchers have discovered the trade-offs they make when using lower-energy light.

One way to visualise this phase is that the oxygen atoms form a solid lattice, and protons flow like a liquid through the lattice, like kids running through a maze Venkat Kapil Scientists at the University of Cambridge have discovered that water in a one-molecule layer acts like neither a liquid nor a solid, and that it becomes highly conductive at high pressures.

A new method to detect Parkinson's disease has been determined by analysing sebum with mass spectrometry. The study, published today in the Journal of the American Chemical Society , have found that there are lipids of high molecular weight that are substantially more active in people suffering from Parkinson's disease.

Researchers have solved a key hurdle in greener manufacturing, carbon capture, energy storage and gas purification - using metal oxides. Metal oxides are compounds that play a crucial role in processes that reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. These processes include carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS), purifying and recycling inert gases in solar panel manufacturing, thermochemical energy storage, and producing hydrogen for energy.

Researchers have developed a new method for assessing the impacts of ozone-destroying substances that threaten the recovery of the ozone layer. The Montreal Protocol is successfully protecting the ozone layer, but there is increasing evidence to suggest the ozone hole is recovering slower than expected John Pyle Published in the journal Nature , their method - the Integrated Ozone Depletion (IOD) metric - provides a useful tool for policymakers and scientists.

Fresh evidence that water can change from one form of liquid into another, denser liquid, has been uncovered by researchers. The research was carried out at the University of Birmingham and Sapienza Università di Roma. A new kind of 'phase transition' in water was first proposed 30 years ago in a study by researchers from Boston University.