Chemistry

Chemical engineers at EPFL have developed a machine-learning model that can predict a compound’s oxidation state, a property that is so essential that many chemists argue it must be included in the periodic table.

Scientists at EPFL and the University of Warwick have used a virus to identify a peptide that can serve the same function as antifreeze proteins. By preventing ice formation, the compound could play a key role in preserving cells and organ transplants and in food conservation.

EPFL scientists are generating oxygen from sunlight, water and semiconducting polymers. They present a promising way towards economical and scalable solar fuel production.

ETH Zurich researchers examined chemicals in plastics worldwide. They found an unexpectedly high number of substances of potential concern intentionally used in everyday plastic products. A lack of transparency limits management of these chemicals.

An international team led by Empa and ETH Zurich researchers is playing with shape-engineered nanoscale building blocks that are up to 100-times larger than atoms and ions. And although these nano "Lego bricks" interact with each other with forces vastly different and much weaker than those holding atoms and ions together, they form crystals all by themselves, the structures of which resemble the ones of natural minerals. These new mega-crystals or superlattices that are depicted on the cover of the latest issue of "Nature" exhibit unique properties such as superfluorescence – and may well usher in a new era in materials science.