College of Chemistry

Bacteria for blastoff: Using microbes to make supercharged new rocket fuel

July 1, 2022

Illustration of rocket fuel from bacteria

Scientists turned to an oddball bacterial molecule that looks like a jaw full of sharp teeth to create a new type of fuel that could be used for all types of vehicles, including rockets. (Credit: Jenny Nuss/Berkeley Lab)

Converting petroleum into fuels involves crude chemistry first invented by humans in the 1800s. Meanwhile, bacteria have been...

Rules for element discovery get superheavy revamp

November 16, 2018

The criteria for whether a new chemical element has been discovered are set to change, a provisional report by the International Unions for Pure and Applied Chemistry (Iupac) and Physics (Iupap) has announced.

Historic Periodic Chart

The upper end of the periodic table. For each known isotope the element name, mass number and half-life are given. Colours are attributed to their decay mode: α-...

Berkeley startup aims to be a game changer in autoimmune disease therapy

July 22, 2021

 Geo Guillen, Marco Lobba, Matthew Francis
UC Berkeley business and chemistry alumni Geo Guillen, left, and Marco Lobba, middle, launched Catena Biosciences with Berkeley chemistry professor Matthew Francis. The trio credit Berkeley’s entrepreneurship ecosystem for their company’s rapid rise. (Photo courtesy of Catena Biosciences)

Marco Lobba was five years into his UC Berkeley chemistry Ph.D. program...

From bomb to the moon: Harold Urey, alum and Nobel laureate of principles

October 14, 2019

Harold Urey at his office in San Diego

Photo: Nobel Laureate and professor, Harold Urey in his office at UC San Diego circa 1965-66. Photo by Ansel Adams, courtesy of the UC RIverside collection.

Book review: The Life and Science of Harold C. Urey, Matthew Shindell, University of...

Prioritizing battery storage to bolster US national security

March 8, 2021

batteries

The urgent threat of climate change, driven by the burning of carbon fuels, requires bold and drastic action on a global scale. Communities in high-risk areas that are increasingly subject to natural disasters, such as recent wildfires in California and flooding in Texas, must adapt and relocate. Food supply chains are struggling as increased drought or volatile weather reduce crop yields and force the...

Scientists finally crack nature’s most common chemical bond

May 26, 2020

catalyst based on iridium

Illustration: A catalyst (center) based on iridium (blue ball) can snip a hydrogen atom (white balls) off a terminal methyl group (upper and lower left) to add a boron-oxygen compound (pink and red) that is easily swapped out for more complicated chemical groups. The reaction works on simple hydrocarbon chains (top reaction) or more complicated carbon compounds (bottom reaction)....

Catalyst Magazine

Current Issue Spring/Summer 2024, V 19.1

Upcycling: Turning plastic bags into adhesives

December 18, 2020

Large pile of plastic in a dump

While plastic bags clog the waste stream, recycling them isn’t financially attractive, since they’re usually turned into very low-value products. If polyethylene packaging could be processed into high-value products, more of them would be recycled instead of ending up in landfills. (photo: Adobe Stock)

While many cities and eight states have banned single-use plastics, bags...

Ziyang Zhang named a Pew-Stewart Scholar selected to advance cutting-edge cancer research

June 13, 2023

Ziyang Zhang

The Pew Charitable Trusts and the Alexander and Margaret Stewart Trust have announced the 2023 class of the Pew-Stewart Scholars Program for Cancer Research. Our congratulations goes to Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Ziyang Zhang who has been named one of five scholars this year.

These early-career...

This Hydrogen Fuel Machine Could Be the Ultimate Guide to Self-Improvement

April 5, 2021

Guosong Zeng, Francesca Toma, Berkeley Lab

Guosong Zeng, a postdoctoral scholar, and Francesca Toma, a staff scientist, both in Berkeley Lab’s Chemical Sciences Division, test an artificial photosynthesis device made of gallium nitride. Toma and Zeng discovered that the device, rather than degrading over time, improves with use. (Credit: Thor Swift/Berkeley Lab)

Three years ago, scientists at...