Hexagons And Rhombis Spreading Out

Tetrahedrite with Siderite

Locality:  Saint-Pierre-de-Mesage, Vizille, Rhone-Alpes, France

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Interlocked Coins Form Complex Geometric Sculptures

Cindermedusae - making generative creatures

Hubble Image Captures Collision of Two Spiral Galaxies

http://www.sci-news.com/astronomy/hubble-collision-two-spiral-galaxies-04839.html

A method to engineer crystals with a large fraction of reactive facets

Versatile superstructures composed of nanoparticles have recently been prepared using various disassembly methods. However, little information is known on how the structural disassembly influences the catalytic performance of the materials. Scientia Professor Rose Amal, Vice-Chancellor’s Research Fellow Hamid Arandiyan and a group from the Particles and Catalysis Research Group from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) School of Chemical Engineering have had their research address this issue published in Nature Communications.

The research team led by Dr Jason Scott and Prof Sean Smith in collaboration with Curtin University and Beijing University of Technology has developed a method that allows them to engineer crystals with a large fraction of reactive facets. An ordered mesostructured La0.6Sr0.4MnO3 (LSMO) perovskite catalyst was disassembled using a unique fragmentation strategy, whereby the newly-exposed (001) reactive faces at each fracture were more reactive towards methane oxidation than the regular (i.e. before disassembly)

It is of significant interest to use methane as an alternative fuel to coal and oil due to its high hydrogen to carbon ratio which provides comparatively lower greenhouse gas emissions. Commercial catalysts for methane combustion contain precious metals (e.g. Pt and Pd) which are of high cost and poor thermal stability (caused by agglomeration of the metal deposits). Using perovskite-type catalysts to replace noble metal supported catalysts for methane oxidation has attracted recent attention due to their excellent thermal stability. In their recently published article, the research team describes a simple fragmentation method to synthesise a novel three-dimensional hexapod mesostructured LSMO perovskite.

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Is dark energy an illusion?

Variations in universe’s density can explain away dark energy, theorists claim from Latest News from Science Magazine http://ift.tt/2nx2XYs via IFTTT

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