#vanadium oxide

Lithium-6 is essential for producing nuclear fusion fuel, but isolating it from the much more common isotope, lithium-7, usually requires liquid mercury, which is extremely toxic. Now, researchers have developed a mercury-free method to isolate lithium-6 that is as effective as the conventional method. The new method is presented March 20 in the Cell Press journal Chem. "This is a step towards addressing a major roadblock to nuclear energy," says chemist and senior author Sarbajit Banerjee of ETH Zürich and Texas A&M University. "Lithium-6 is a critical material for the renaissance of nuclear energy, and this method could represent a viable approach to isotope separation."

Ferromagnetism achieved in pure vanadium oxide by tuning oxidation states

A research team has succeeded in inducing ferromagnetism, a key property of conventional magnets, in pure vanadium oxide, a compound not previously recognized for such magnetic behavior. Through a series of experiments, the team verified that by precisely adjusting the oxidation state of vanadium ions, they could induce the element to behave magnetically. The research is published in the journal Advanced Functional Materials. The team was led by Professor Chun-Yeol You from the Department of Physics and Chemistry at DGIST. Vanadium oxide (VO) is widely known for its metal-insulator transition (MIT), a phenomenon in which its electrical conductivity dramatically changes depending on temperature. While its electronic properties have been extensively studied, its magnetic properties—especially the possibility of ferromagnetism—remain largely unexplored. VO typically exhibits antiferromagnetic or paramagnetic behavior, which limits its application as a magnetic material.

Imaging technique reveals strains and defects in vanadium oxide

Researchers led by Edwin Fohtung, an associate professor of materials science and engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, have developed a new technique for revealing defects in nanostructured vanadium oxide, a widely used transition metal with many potential applications including electrochemical anodes, optical applications, and supercapacitors. In the research—which was published in an article in the Royal Chemical Society journal CrystEngComm, and also featured on the cover of the edition—the team detailed a lensless microscopy technique to capture individual defects embedded in vanadium oxide nanoflakes.

"These observations could help explain the origin of defects in structure, crystallinity, or composition gradients observed near grain boundaries in other thin-film or flake technologies," said Fohtung, an expert in novel synchrotron scattering and imaging techniques. "We believe that our work has the potential to change how we view the growth and non-destructive three-dimensional imaging of nanomaterials."

Vanadium oxide is currently used in many technological fields such as energy storage, and can also be used in constructing field-effect transistors owing to metal insulating transition behavior that can be adjusted with an electric field. However, strain and defects in the material can alter its functionality, creating the need for non-destructive techniques to detect those potential flaws.

Tungsten-substituted vanadium oxide breathes fresh air into catalyst technology

Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have created a new tungsten-substituted vanadium oxide catalyst for breaking down harmful nitrogen oxides in industrial exhaust. Their new catalyst material works at lower temperatures and does not suffer major drops in performance when processing 'wet' exhaust, resolving a major drawback in conventional vanadium oxide catalysts. They found that the unaggregated dispersal of atomic tungsten in the original crystal structure plays a key role in how it functions.

Selective catalytic reduction (SCR) is an essential technology for keeping air clean. Industrial exhaust is passed through catalytic units and reacted with a reductant to convert harmful nitrogen oxides into nitrogen and water. High levels of nitrogen oxides not only harm crops and vegetation, but can directly harm people, exacerbating asthma and other respiratory problems. This makes the wide, efficient deployment of SCR technology particularly important for society.

New ways to harness wasted methane

The primary component of natural gas, methane, is itself a potent greenhouse gas. A recent study, affiliated with UNIST has unveiled a high performance catalyst for methane conversion to formaldehyde.

This breakthrough has been led by Professor Kwang-jin Ahn and his team in the School of Energy and Chemical Engineering at UNIST in collaboration with Professor Ja Hun Kwak (School of Energy and Chemical Engineering, UNIST), Professor Eun Duck Park from Ajou University, and Professor Yoon Seok Jung from Hanyang University.

In this work, the team has presented an excellent 'methane oxidase catalyst' consisting of nanomaterials. This material has a stable structure and high reactivity at high temperatures, increasing the efficiency of converting methane to formaldehyde more than twice as much as before.