Organogels: New cleaning agent for artworks
The restoration of artworks often involves solvents which have toxic properties. Now researchers have succeeded for the first time in creating a non-toxic and sustainable cleaning agent for paintings.
Climate and environment
Solving the puzzle behind the viscosity jump in the Earth’s lower mantle
Prof. Dr. Tomoo Katsura and his international research team at the Bavarian Research Institute of Experimental Geochemistry and Geophysics, University of Bayreuth, have discovered why rocks in the Earth’s interior suddenly become more viscous at depths of 800 to 1,200 kilometres.
Grimy windows could be harbouring toxic pollutants
Dirty windows can harbour potentially harmful pollutants under protective films of fatty acids from cooking emissions – and these can hang around over long periods of time.
Exploring Salty Water Structure to Understand Carbon Sequestration in Deep Aquifers
Researchers combine neutron diffraction experiments and simulations to study NaCl solutions under extreme conditions.
Neutrons detect air pollution
Portuguese scientists have analysed lichens from areas with traditional charcoal production for the first time with the help of the Research Neutron Source Heinz Maier-Leibnitz (FRM II) of the Technical University of Munich (TUM). Lichens located near areas of charcoal production contained more than twice the concentration of phosphorus, which is generated during the combustion process.
Neutrons show how water moves in permafrost
Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research have now investigated a related effect at interfaces between ice and porous clay minerals. Such interfaces are found in nature for example in permafrost. The results may help to better understand changes in frozen soils as temperatures rise.
Nanomaterial fights back against resistant bacteria
Significant amounts of antibiotic residues and pathogens enter the environment via our wastewater. A German Italian team of researchers has now investigated a novel nanomaterial that has an antibacterial effect and can bind antibiotics at the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Zentrum. Wastewater could thus be treated more effectively and safely.
