(Funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation)
Engineers from Purdue University and GRIMM Aerosol Technik Ainring GmbH & Co. in Germany have found that chemical products from air fresheners, wax melts, floor cleaners, and deodorants can rapidly fill the air with nanoparticles that are small enough to get deep into our lungs. These nanoparticles form when fragrances interact with ozone, which enters buildings through ventilation systems. “Our research shows that fragranced products are not just passive sources of pleasant scents—they actively alter indoor air chemistry, leading to the formation of nanoparticles at concentrations that could have significant health implications,” said Nusrat Jung, one of the engineers involved in this study.

(Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy)
Most optical sensors record data from light and then transmit all of the raw data to a computer for processing. This typically consumes more energy than necessary, because in most applications, only a small amount of information relative to the raw data is needed. So, scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories; the University of California, Berkeley; the University of California, Davis; and the University of Texas at Arlington are developing a less power-hungry approach, in which some data processing is conducted in the sensor itself, before the data is sent to a computer or processed by edge computing devices. The new sensor, called a “nanoscale hybrid,” stitches together nanostructures, such as nanotubes and nanowires. It is highly sensitive in part because the sensor’s nanoscale components are smaller than the wavelength of light.

(Funded by the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of Energy)
Researchers from Rice University, the University of California Berkeley, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have shed light on how the extreme miniaturization of thin films affects the behavior of relaxor ferroelectrics — materials with noteworthy energy-conversion properties used in sensors, actuators, and nanoelectronics. The findings reveal that as the films shrink to dimensions comparable to internal polarization structures within the films, their fundamental properties can shift in unexpected ways. More specifically, when the films are shrunk down to a precise range of 25–30 nanometers, their ability to maintain their structure and functionality under varying conditions is significantly enhanced.

(Funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Institutes of Health)
Researchers from Rutgers University, the New Jersey Institute of Technology, the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station in New Haven, CT, and the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute in Piscataway, NJ, have shown that microplastic and nanosplastic particles in soil and water can significantly increase how much toxic chemicals plants and human intestinal cells absorb. Using a cellular model of the human small intestine, the researchers found that nano-size plastic particles increased the absorption of arsenic by nearly six-fold compared with arsenic exposure alone. The same effect was seen with boscalid, a commonly used pesticide. Also, the researchers exposed lettuce plants to two sizes of polystyrene particles – 20 nanometers and 1,000 nanometers – along with arsenic and boscalid. They found the smaller particles had the biggest impact, increasing arsenic uptake into edible plant tissues nearly threefold compared to plants exposed to arsenic alone.

(Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy)
Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, as well as Northern Illinois University have discovered that superconducting nanowire photon detectors, which are used for detecting photons (the fundamental particles of light) could potentially also function as highly accurate particle detectors, specifically for high-energy protons used as projectiles in particle accelerators. The ability to detect high-energy protons with superconducting nanowire photon detectors has never been reported before, and this discovery widens the scope of particle detection applications.