Il Nobel per la Chimica 2014 è stato assegnato a tre scienziati che sono riusciti a spingere la microscopia ottica oltre il limite della diffrazione di Abbe, ritenuta finora invalicabile, ottenendo una risoluzione superiore ai 0,2 micrometri, pari cioè alla metà della lunghezza d’onda della luce

Nanocarbons offer many novel possibilities to develop advanced catalysts, catalytic electrodes and materials for clean energy. This contribution briefly introduces some aspects of the potentialities and open issues, in carbon nanomaterials for applications going from energy devices (to enable a larger use of renewable energy sources) to catalysis for cleaner processes and the use of alternative or renewable raw materials in chemical production. Nanocarbons can be considered a new class of materials for catalysis and clean energy, where their nano-engineering (from the control of nano-dimension to their doping/modification to insert specific surface reactive or functional groups) opens new possibilities to address the societal challenges for clean energy and chemical production

Per salvaguardare il pianeta e ridurre la dipendenza energetica dell’Italia è necessario uscire dall’era dei combustibili fossili e sviluppare le energie rinnovabili. Nessuna fonte di energia, però, può far fronte a una crescita illimitata della richiesta. Ne deriva la necessità di ridurre i consumi mediante un aumento di efficienza e una cultura del risparmio, particolarmente nei Paesi sviluppati

Un dispositivo di fotosintesi artificiale che può essere capace di produrre idrogeno dall’acqua ed anche sequestrare CO2 è stato scoperto da ricercatori australiani. Questo risultato è una bella conferma delle previsioni di Ciamician sul ruolo della fotochimica, come alternativa ai combustibili fossili, per produrre energia

DeNOX plants, which are used to reduce NOX emissions from power plants, can generate hazards. In fact one of the major hazards is the formation of a toxic and flammable vapor cloud from an accidental release of ammonia. In this contest the water spray curtain is currently recognized as a reliable technique to mitigate toxic and flammable vapors and increase safety standard of the aqueous ammonia tanks storage area

Air Liquide ha installato otto impianti di neutralizzazione delle acque reflue con CO2 nei cantieri della costruenda metropolitana M5 di Milano, nell’ambito delle infrastrutture per EXPO 2015. L’uso di CO2 offre garanzie in termini di sicurezza, rispetto dell’ambiente, efficacia e semplicità d’impiego

Graphene as a building block material is used as an electrode to selectively oxidize the silicon substrate for the fabrication of new devices

Phenotypic screening is a powerful approach in neglected tropical diseases drug discovery. Hence, we tested a focused natural naphthoquinone-inspired library against trypanosomatid cells, providing a promising hit compound with a multitarget mechanism of action

In this work a new tool, comprising a rapid extraction procedure and an efficient analytical method, was developed for the metabolite fingerprinting of hop bioactive compounds. The method was fully validated and successfully applied to commercial cultivars and wild Italian hop genotypes

Chiral polythiophenes properties are strictly related to the conformation that the polymer chains adopt: these polymers can organize in helical structures both in solution and in the solid state. This self assembly can be controlled with different means, making them a very interesting material for a wide range of applications

The design, synthesis and biological evaluation of integrin ligands is an important goal for their potential application as diagnostic and therapeutic tools in cancer research. We have synthesized isoxazoline-containing peptidomimetics, that showed great affinity towards αvβ3 and α5β1 integrins. These receptors are involved in tumor angiogenesis and the obtained ligands may be thus conjugated to fluorescent molecules to provide potential diagnostic tools

Il belga Jean Servais Stas (Louvain, 1813 - Saint Gilles, 1891) è noto soprattutto per aver determinato numerosi pesi atomici con scrupolosa accuratezza. Lavorando per circa venticinque anni sottopose a minuziosa verifica la legge delle proporzioni definite ma si occupò anche d’altro, come dimostra la brillante soluzione di un caso di omicidio provocato da nicotina. Fu definito un chimico “réaliste”

In this work, a tool for the investigation of metabolic analytes, such as glucose and lactate is proposed. For this purpose enzyme-based ultramicroelectrodes (UMEs) are used in conjunction with Scanning Electrochemical Microscopy (SECM) to image metabolic species in the proximity of cells