News from the NNI Community - Research Advances Funded by Agencies Participating in the NNI

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratories have developed a nanocomposite coating that could be used in many applications, such as shielding in the form of mechanical barriers, body armor, and space debris shields. The coating is composed of thin layers of carbon black interspersed between slightly thicker layers of silica, and it looks like the layering of a seashell, each layer helping the next to contain and mitigate shock.

Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham have developed a novel therapy that improves obesity and Type 2 diabetes conditions of mice that were fed a high-fat diet. The therapy acts through sustained release of nitric oxide, a gas that relaxes the inner muscles of blood vessels. The researchers used a nanomatrix gel composed of peptide-based molecules that self-assemble into cylindrical micelle nanofibers. The nanomatrix gel can release a burst of nitric oxide in the first 24 hours, followed by sustained nitric oxide release for four weeks. At the end of 12 weeks, the nitric oxide-mice had gained 17% less body weight, compared to controls, and that weight difference was due mainly to decreased fat.

Researchers have routinely studied DNA and protein molecules by turning them into regularly packed crystals that can be examined with an X-ray beam or radio waves. However, these techniques cannot be applied to RNA molecules with nearly the same effectiveness, because their molecular composition and structural flexibility prevent them from easily forming crystals. Now, researchers from the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University and Harvard Medical School have reported a new approach to the structural investigation of RNA molecules. This approach uses an RNA nanotechnological technique that allows multiple identical RNA molecules to be assembled into a highly organized structure. 

Researchers from Rice University, Arizona State University, and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have developed a high-performance catalyst that can, with near 100% efficiency, pull ammonia from low levels of nitrates that are widespread in industrial wastewater and polluted groundwater. The researchers showed that the catalyst, which was made by dispersing ruthenium atoms into a copper nanowire matrix, converts nitrate levels of 2,000 parts per million into ammonia, followed by an efficient gas stripping process for ammonia product collection.

Researchers from Michigan State University and the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology in Germany have repurposed bacterial microcompartments (each about 40 nanometers in diameter) and programmed them to produce valuable chemicals from inexpensive starting ingredients. The researchers engineered the microcompartments to turn the simple and inexpensive compounds formate and acetate into pyruvate, bringing enzymes and these compounds together in the same, smaller space, rather than having them spread out throughout a bacterial cell.

Scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and three German universities (Technische Universitat Bergakademie Freiberg, Universitat Hamburg, and Technische Universitat Munchen) have found a way to track electrons along their round trip from molecules to nanoparticles in materials that convert sunlight into electricity or fuels. The scientists found that a common nanoparticle material, zinc oxide, first stalls the electrons for a while and then lets the electrons move along the surface of the nanoparticles. This makes it likely that the charges can get lost or can damage the nanoparticle material. The ability to reveal these bottlenecks for electron travel will help researchers design better materials for turning sunlight into other forms of energy. 

Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the University of California, Berkeley, Cornell University, and Rutgers University have discovered layered two-dimensional (2D) materials that can host unique magnetic features and remain stable at room temperature. Atomic-scale images of the material reveal the precise chemical and structural characteristics that are responsible for these features and their stability.

Researchers from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Asylum Research, the University of Strasbourg in France, the University of Luxemburg, and East China Normal University in Shanghai have demonstrated that a 2D material, called molybdenum disulfide, has a long-theorized property that could help computers, phones, and other microelectronics save both power and their electrical states, even after being turned off. In the wake of this study, molybdenum disulfide now joins a handful of materials that have high-yet-controllable conductivity and easily switchable polarization.

Researchers at Washington State University have demonstrated the idea of incorporating old masks into a cement mixture to create stronger, more durable concrete. The researchers mixed microfibers from the masks into a solution of graphene oxide before adding the mixture to cement paste. The graphene oxide provides ultrathin layers that strongly adhere to the fiber surfaces. The researchers showed that the mixture using mask materials was 47% stronger than commonly used cement after a month of curing. 

A Cornell University-led project has created synthetic nanoclusters that can mimic the type of hierarchical self-assembly found in DNA molecules and photonic crystals all the way from the nanometer to the centimeter scale. The resulting synthetic thin films could serve as a model system for exploring biomimetic hierarchical systems and future advanced functions.