Analytical Chemistry
Atomic absorption (AA) has been known since the 19th century, but it was not until the 1950s, thanks to efforts by Alan Walsh at Australia’s CSIRO research center, that use of AA spectrometers became routine for metals analysis.
| 3 min read
The Royal Photographic Society, in partnership with the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), launches an exhibition of the world’s best scientific photography at the Great North Museum: Hancock, Newcastle, on Saturday 31 August. The exhibition also forms part of the British Science Festival taking place in Newcastle from 7-12 September, before touring the UK from 1 October.
| 2 min read
Trying to sniff out traces of hard-to-detect gases can be like trying to hear a whisper at the other end of a very large, very crowded, very noisy room.
| 4 min read
U.S. Department of Energy national laboratories – including Berkeley Lab - collaborate to build the new magnets CERN needs to increase LHC luminosity by an order of magnitude.
| 5 min read
In 1964, University of Utah chemistry professor J. Calvin Giddings enunciated a theoretical platform, “unified separation science,” that could confer the resolving power of GC to LC. Giddings’ model combined the higher mobile phase diffusion and efficiency of GC with LC’s higher selectivity via orthogonal separation modes. His vision has been made a reality through supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC), which uses supercritical or subcritical carbon dioxide as the mobile phase.
| 4 min read
At first glance the beautifully bound 1797 Luigi Cherubini opera Médée looks like an impeccably preserved relic of opera's golden age. However, flip to the final pages of the aria "Du trouble affreux qui me dévore" ("The terrible disorder that consumes me") and you see the problem: Thick smudges of carbon completely black out the closing lines.
| 4 min read
Berkeley Lab scientists and their colleagues have discovered the properties that made ancient Roman concrete sustainable and durable.
| 4 min read
Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have reported on a technique for hyperpolarizing carbon-13 nuclear spins in diamond that enhances the sensitivity of NMR/MRI by many orders of magnitude above what is ordinarily possible with conventional NMR magnets at room temperature.
| 4 min read
Berkeley Lab researchers and their colleagues create a new way to model biological molecules caught with a flash of x-rays.
| 3 min read
Detecting greenhouse gases in the atmosphere could soon become far easier with the help of an innovative technique* developed by a team at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), where scientists have overcome an issue preventing the effective use of lasers to rapidly scan samples.
| 2 min read
A dramatic leap forward in the ability of scientists to study the structural states of macromolecules such as proteins and nanoparticles in solution has been achieved by a pair of researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).
| 3 min read
