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Hydrogen can form 'ghost bonds' with something that isn't even there

14 September 2018

Chemists have worked out how to trick hydrogen into making a distant bond with nothing but thin air

Bacteria teach us how to make green fuel from carbon dioxide

28 May 2018

We’ve found bacteria that turn carbon dioxide into hydrocarbons useful for fuel and plastic, and now we’ve mimicked their enzymes to do it even better

Fertiliser feeds us but trashes the climate – now there's a fix

15 May 2018

The way we make ammonia for fertilizer was developed a century ago and produces more than 1 per cent of all carbon emissions. Now we may have a replacement

Alan Turing inspired a faster way to make seawater drinkable

3 May 2018

Computer pioneer Alan Turing’s only chemistry paper has inspired a new material that can remove salt from seawater five times faster than traditional filters

Ultrasonic micro-explosions can harvest gold from old SIM cards

3 April 2018

We waste $22 billion in gold from electronics that are tossed out instead of recycled. A new technique uses ultrasound to harvest that precious metal from SIM cards

Eco-friendly nanowood is a super strong and recyclable styrofoam

9 March 2018

Nanowood is a strong yet lightweight material made by chemically stripping wood to its skeletal fibres. It’s eco-friendly and insulates better than styrofoam

Weird ice found on Neptune and Uranus has now been made on Earth

5 February 2018

Bizarre ice that forms under intense pressure and high temperatures may cause Neptune’s and Uranus’s odd magnetic fields. Now, we’ve made this stuff on Earth