Hear the biggest stories from the world of science | 18 August 2025
Category: chemistry
New energy-boosting quantum mechanism discovered in photosynthetic bacteria
Researchers have discovered how certain photosynthetic bacteria use a sophisticated quantum mechanism to increase their efficiency when capturing sunlight. The study, published today in the journal Nature Chemistry and led by Professor Jenny Clark, reveals that nature has been using a process called “singlet fission,” effectively a “two-for-one” energy deal, to optimize solar harvesting. The findings provide a new blueprint for green technology, particularly as engineers attempt to copy this mechanism to build next-generation solar panels and quantum technologies.
While scientists have long understood the basic rules of how plants and bacteria convert light into chemical fuel, the biological role of singlet fission has historically remained poorly understood.
Turning low-value diamond dust into high-performance quantum materials
Diamonds have long been coveted for their beauty. Their dazzling color and clarity make them perfect candidates for luxury jewelry. However, it’s their other unique characteristics, including their hardness, thermal conductivity and chemical resistance, that make diamonds suitable for various applications in industry and advanced technologies.
At the quantum scale, carefully engineered diamonds can behave like tiny sensors—able to ‘feel’ magnetic signals from nearby molecules. In simple terms, they can pick up incredibly faint signals that would otherwise be invisible to conventional instruments. This capability could help us detect contaminants in water, identify disease biomarkers and monitor chemical processes in real time.
The project strengthens one of Australia’s most important international science partnerships, bringing together complementary expertise in quantum materials, advanced manufacturing and characterization to accelerate the development of next-generation sensing technologies.
Quantum squeezing sidesteps the limits on mechanical transducers
From detecting the ripples of colliding black holes to imaging individual chemical bonds, mechanical transducers have repeatedly transformed our understanding of the universe. So far, however, the sensitivity of these devices has been intrinsically limited by the laws of quantum mechanics itself.
Through new research published in Physical Review Letters, researchers led by Lukas Novotny at ETH Zurich have found a way to push past that ceiling using a quantum trick called squeezing, opening a new chapter in precision measurement.
Ultrafast X-rays allow researchers to ‘watch’ how molecules rearrange during a chemical reaction controlled by light
Since the 1980s, researchers have sought to use laser light to control chemical reactions relevant to photochemistry, catalysis and light-responsive materials. But this technique, known as coherent control, has a blind spot: There has been no way to directly see the molecules in these reactions as their structures rearrange.
Now, researchers at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have imaged a coherently controlled chemical reaction for the first time. Their work, published in Physical Review A, uses ultrafast X-rays from the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) to show in real time how atoms move in a molecule that was excited and manipulated with laser light.
“There are many challenges with controlling chemical reactions, but seeing is believing,” said study lead author Tom Hopper, assistant professor at the University of Central Florida who was a postdoctoral researcher at SLAC at the time of the study. “If you can see something directly, it opens up a new level of control.”
Growing a new ‘leaf’ that harnesses sun, water and CO2 to make liquid fuel
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A Yale-led research team has developed the first standalone device that produces the liquid fuel methanol using only sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide as the ingredients.
The artificial “leaf,” like its namesake in nature, is a chemistry marvel. It brings the scientific mimicry of photosynthesis — the process of converting sunlight and water into chemical energy — to a new level, converting sunlight to methanol 32 times more efficiently than the previous conversion record for artificial leaf technologies that generate alcohol products.
Battery ‘bath’ restores spent lithium-ion cells to 95% power, cuts recycling costs 56%
The critical minerals that power lithium-ion batteries are in high demand and short supply, especially for the U.S., which must rely on importing resources such as nickel and cobalt to manufacture the technology.
Cornell researchers have now developed a more efficient and cost-effective way to recover almost the full life of these batteries after they are spent. By using an electrochemical solution to regenerate their electrodes, the recycled batteries can regain up to 95% of their original power and last longer when reused, the researchers demonstrated.
The process could also slash current recycling costs by 56% and would be more environmentally friendly than current methods.
Feeding data to AI to speed up drug discovery
Developing new medicines can require thousands of chemistry experiments to identify the right recipe for a safe, effective and ideally affordable drug.
The process is slow and labor-intensive, and many of the reactions depend on hard-to-source metals that act as essential catalysts.
While artificial intelligence is helping speed up the process of drug discovery, it can only learn from the data available, and when it comes to chemical reactions, the large, high-quality data sets needed to train powerful AI tools aren’t there.