A Quebec firm has solved a critical challenge for the aluminium industry, earning the 2014 Canadian Green Chemistry and Engineering Award (CSA Group Award for Organizations) from the Chemical Institute...
Read More >>Amber, a relatively simple resin secreted by trees, is among nature’s sturdiest and perhaps most elegant compounds. It is tough enough to withstand millions of years’ worth of environmental abuse, yet it remains capable of capturing light in a gem-like fashion suitable for jewelry.
Read More >>As insects go, bees undoubtedly lead the polls of popular opinion. While most...
Read More >>This December marks the 30th anniversary of a grim milestone for the world’s chemical industry — the accidental release of methyl isocyanate gas from a pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, which killed about 4,000 people and severely compromised the health of thousands more.
Read More >>Given how much information we regularly store in magnetic form on everything from computer hard disks to credit card strips, researchers are increasingly interested in the stability of magnetic properties in materials. Mary Anne White, a chemist at Dalhousie University...
Read More >>As the hardware in communications systems has progressed from copper wires to fibre optic cables, the acceleration of data transfer speed has been profound. No one with access to fibre would ever want to go back to copper connections, but there is still one place we are stuck with them...
Read More >>In laboratories around the world, researchers regularly pay top dollar for specialized materials to conduct their work. Afterward, any leftovers usually go into storage, where all too often they remain...
Read More >>In liquid form, life-saving agents such as vaccines can be notoriously unstable, often requiring refrigeration or other support systems to preserve them long enough to reach patients in need. International aid missions can easily be foiled by simple...
Read More >>Materials that function on a nanometre scale are a practical reality for Vancouver-based STEMCELL Technologies Inc., which relies on them to contain and handle the sensitive cell lines. Dozens of other firms across Canada are also making use of such nanomaterials
Read More >>Automobile manufacturers have well-established technology for adding an oxygen molecule to the toxic carbon monoxide from vehicles’ tailpipes, so that the output instead consists of CO2. Unfortunately, this active catalytic oxidation does not come chea...
Read More >>To paraphrase a famous observation, “Everybody talks about climate change, but nobody does much about it.” Indeed, media reports and scientific...
Read More >>While the industrialized countries of the world eagerly seek ways to cut back on their energy consumption, developing nations face a different challenge — ramping up their energy output as...
Read More >>