Green Chemistry

Omar Yaghi wins BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Basic Sciences

January 23, 2018

Omar YaghiThe BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Basic Sciences category goes, in this tenth edition, to Jordanian-American chemist Omar Yaghi, “for his pioneering work in the conception and synthesis of new...

UC Berkeley Center for Green Chemistry recipient of an award for novel green preservatives

August 6, 2018

Green suppliesThe Green Chemistry & Commerce Council (GC3) and InnoCentive have announced the Berkeley Center for Green Chemistry as one of seven winners in the global GC3 Challenge: Developing New Preservatives for Personal Care & Household Products. Launched in April 2017, the challenge aims to identify and support innovators developing preservative technologies with improved environmental,...

Sewage sludge leads to biofuels breakthrough

March 26, 2018

Jewel Lake, Tilden Park Berkeley. Photo ChickMarkley.JBEI enzyme discovery enables first-time microbial production of an aromatic biofuel.

The study was led by Harry Beller, Berkeley Lab senior scientist and scientific...

Researchers create a protein ‘mat’ that can soak up pollution

March 16, 2018

Ting XuIn a breakthrough that could lead to a new class of materials with functions found only in living systems, Ting Xu and fellow researchers have figured out a way to keep certain proteins active outside of the cell. The researchers used this technology to create mats...

Artificial leaves to produce fuel on Earth and, one day, Mars

January 24, 2018

Matt Damon, Mars movieWith the right technology, the gas station of the future will make its own fuel directly from sunlight, in the process sucking up carbon and producing oxygen. Decades into the future, the same technology could provide fuel and oxygen for the first Martians, and could even be tweaked to produce fertilizer....

Chemists create tinted windows that also generate electricity

January 23, 2018

Peidong YangPeidong Yang, a professor of chemistry and faculty scientist at Berkeley Lab, and his colleagues have tweaked the chemical structure of perovskite — a versatile material that already rivals silicon-based solar cells — so that the material turns from transparent...

Heavily used pesticide linked to breathing problems in farmworkers’ children

August 14, 2017

Farmer on tractor spraying fieldsElemental sulfur, the most heavily used pesticide in California, may harm the respiratory health of children living near farms that use the pesticide, according to new research led by UC Berkeley.