Posted on 09/14/2021 5:12:19 PM PDT by American Number 181269513
When it comes to water, some materials have a split personality - and some of these materials could hold the key to new ways of harnessing solar energy. These small assemblies of organic molecules have parts that are hydrophobic, or water-fearing, while other parts are hydrophilic, or water-loving. Because of their schizoid nature, micelles organize themselves into spheres that have their hydrophilic parts turned out while their hydrophobic parts are shielded inside.
A new study from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) Argonne National Laboratory has shown water can serve another previously undiscovered role as these micelles coalesce to spontaneously form long fibers.
In a study led by Argonne nanoscientist Subramanian Sankaranarayanan and chemist Christopher Fry, both of Argonne's Center for Nanoscale Materials, supercomputer simulations and as well as lab-based experiments showed that water serves as an invisible cage for the growth of the micelle fiber.
The study could help scientists to understand how light-harvesting molecules are incorporated into the micelle fiber as it assembles, which would be a key step to understanding some forms of artificial photosynthesis.
"Until now, trying to understand where the light-harvesting molecules bind has been like trying to see how a square peg can fit in a round hole," said Sankaranarayanan. "By seeing the way in which the micelle fiber self-assembles, we can get a better understanding of how these kinds of light-harvesting systems are formed."
(Excerpt) Read more at esciencenews.com ...
“It’s amazing that water, this God given source of life, is still not fully understood. “
Other things we don’t understand:
Light
Gravity
Magnetism
Attraction/Repulsion forces
DEMOCRATS
You forgot Democrats
Sounds like they’re trying to find a way to keep the lights on with crappy green energy.
Women.
Democrat voters more specifically. We know Reps like Pelosi are completely insane, the real mystery are the lunatics who keep voting for her or any democrat.
Gee, All life assembles proteins and other critical cell components in a water medium. If I was a materials scientist that is the medium I would be using to assemble biofibers. I might even uses genetically modified cells to generate the building blocks of the fibers.
That’s because some molecules of water have more watermelanin to absorb sunlight.
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