News from this issue of Science Magazine

1. Batteries are going to break out from old forms:

Now he's on his way. Last month, Chiang and his colleagues reported in Advanced Energy Materials that they've created a new battery design called a semisolid flow cell that's like a battery with a fuel tank. Like today's batteries, the device contains lithium ions that shuttle back and forth either storing or releasing electrical charges on demand. But instead of packaging those ions along with the electrodes and other apparatus all together, as in a typical battery, Chiang's semisolid flow cell separates the energy-delivery apparatus from energy storage. In this battery, the storage medium is a pair of gooey, black liquids, the consistency of yogurt, that contain nanoscale particles of materials commonly used as anodes and cathodes in lithium-ion cells. These particles are suspended in an electrolyte and separated by a porous membrane. When power is needed, a bolus of each goo is pumped from external tanks into a network of current collectors that extract electrons while lithium ions shuttle through the membrane from the anode particles to the cathode particles. The spent slurries can then be reenergized, as in a normal rechargeable battery, or pumped out and replaced. Other types of flow batteries have been made in the past, but Chiang says the new setup can store up to 30 times as much energy as previous versions. He has launched another company, called 24M, to commercialize the technology.[http://www.sciencemag.org/content/332/6037/1494.full]

2.

Move over, China. Japan's “K Computer” is now the fastest supercomputer in the world. On 20 June, K was ranked number one in the TOP500 list of the world's supercomputers, performing three times as fast as its Chinese rival and the previous champion, Tianhe-1A.

The TOP500 list is updated twice a year and ranks how quickly computers solve a standard mathematical equation. K, built by Fujitsu and located at the RIKEN Advanced Institute for Computational Science in Kobe, can perform 8.2 quadrillion calculations per second, equivalent to linking about 1 million desktop computers. That performance is still shy of the target kei, or 10 quadrillion, calculations for which the supercomputer was named. This is the first time Japan has topped the list since 2004.[http://www.sciencemag.org/content/332/6037/1488.2.full]

3. Education is not a rece:

In the United States and elsewhere, the competitive pressures placed on young people in school are damaging many otherwise promising lives. In addition to generating debilitating anxiety and encouraging a culture of cheating, this competition takes the joy out of learning. The film Race to Nowhere, which continues to receive attention since its release a year ago, documents the unhealthy consequences of the competitive “teach to the test” climate that many U.S. students experience. The film, in which I was interviewed, puts in clear relief the pressures that youth are under to amass large numbers of Advanced Placement (college-equivalent) classes, win science fairs, excel in the arts and sports, and in other ways distinguish themselves from the competition for admission into a few select universities that parents and schools believe are critical for future success. Research on motivation makes it clear that focusing attention entirely on performance, whether grades or test scores, destroys whatever intrinsic interest the subject matter might have had.* There are certainly students whose passions spur them to realize their full potential in rigorous academic courses and other impressive activities. But how many potential Nobel Prize winners have written off science before the end of high school because their only exposure to the subject had been in test preparation courses rather than in classes that delved into meaningful questions? It doesn't have to be this way, but change will require coordinated efforts at many levels.

Success in life does not require a degree from one of 10 universities. We need to evaluate U.S. high schools (pre-college education) on how well they help students find a college that matches their interests and goals, not on the proportion of students that they send to elite institutions. And the coveted universities need to demonstrate that they are interested in students who have a genuine passion for extending their educational experience, not merely in tallying items on resumés.

Many U.S. teachers also must change their approach to teaching. Extensive research shows that students will become more emotionally engaged (and even passionate) if simple principles are followed: if the subject matter is connected to students' personal lives and interests; if students have opportunities to be actively involved in solving or designing solutions to novel and multidimensional problems, doing experiments, debating the implications of findings, or working collaboratively; if students have multiple opportunities to earn a good grade (by rewriting papers or retaking tests); if attention is drawn to the knowledge and skills that students are developing, not to grades or scores; and if all learning and skill development is celebrated, whatever the level.

Schools must create homework policies to ensure that diligent students aren't kept up late into the night; schedule some spacing between major tests and offer ample opportunities for students to get extra help; make sure that at least one adult is paying attention to every student's emotional needs; provide parent education on the advantages of a broad array of potential colleges; survey students regularly on the sources of their stress and make sure that this feedback informs policies; and offer opportunities for students to pursue academic interests unencumbered by performance concerns, such as in independent studies or clubs.

The world is rapidly changing. Problem-solving skills and critical analysis have become infinitely more important than being able to answer the typical questions given on standardized tests. A valuable science of teaching and learning exists that should guide efforts to improve students' interest, engagement, and intellectual skills, as well as reduce the debilitating stress that is becoming epidemic.** Only by paying attention to what we know can we make the changes that youth need to lead healthy and productive lives. [http://www.sciencemag.org/content/332/6037/1481.full]

AIP Advances

This is a new journal that was recently launched in the field of applied physical science. It differs from the prestigious journals such as Physical Reviews, Nature and Science by its editor policy. It is through peer review, but the reviewers are not expected to comment on the significance of a submission, which is supposed to be recognized by post-publication discussions from scientists across the world. It is waiting to see whether it will be successful. But definitely, it gives a channel for those who are working on very cold topics that hardly lead to appearing in a mainstream journals.

As a community-supported journal, AIP Advances welcomes full participation from a wide spectrum of physical scientists. Researchers interested in becoming reviewers are invited to register at http://AIPadvances.peerx-press.org. Direct questions about the review process to aip.advances@aip.org.

The Executive Editors, aided by the Academic Editors, set editorial policy for the journal. Submitted manuscripts are assigned to a particular Academic Editor who provides oversight of the peer-review process, and, based on reviewer feedback, decides to accept the paper, request revisions of the author, or rejects the paper.

Reviewers and editors are not expected to judge the significance of the scientific results. The Academic Editors use the following guidelines in accepting a submission for publication:

• Does the manuscript present results of primary scientific research?
• Does the manuscript present research in an area of applied physical science?
• Have the results been published elsewhere?
• Does the analysis represent rigorous technical standards; is the detail presented sufficient?
• Are conclusions supported by the data presented?
• Is the manuscript understandable; is it written in good scientific English?

Reviewers assigned to a manuscript will use the Journal's online system for all aspects of the process. A checklist is provided within the online system to assist the reviewer. [http://aipadvances.aip.org/reviewers/reviewer_guidelines]

A big jump

I heard of this jump weeks ago. But I did not play dice on it, anyway I feel it may not hold up, but it might. What will be the result ? NO body knows for the moment. There is indeed a churr in the community, as described in this news [http://www.sciencemag.org/content/332/6027/296.full]:

Particle physicists haven't discovered anything truly surprising in 35 years, so a mere hint of something odd works them up in a hurry. So it was last week, when, aided by press reports, news spread that scientists in the United States may have spotted a bit of matter unlike any seen before. But even as they contemplate the implications, physicists are taking the result with a grain of salt. The supposed signal could be an experimental artifact, caution the researchers who found it. And if a new particle is there, physicists may have to perform theoretical contortions to explain why they didn't spot it before. “I think the result is rather inconclusive,” says Christopher Hill, an experimenter at Ohio State University in Columbus, who was not involved in the work.

The finding comes from the 700-member team working with the CDF particle detector at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, Illinois. The team analyzed the billions of collisions of protons and antiprotons produced by Fermilab's atom smasher, the 25-year-old Tevatron, which will shut down this year. Those high-energy collisions can blast into fleeting existence massive subatomic particles not seen in the everyday world. Physicists try to identify those particles by studying the combinations of familiar particles into which they decay.

In this case, experimenters searched for collisions that produced a particle called a W boson, which weighs about 86 times as much as a proton, along with some other particle that disintegrates into two sprays of particles called “jets.” A jet arises when a collision or decay kicks out a particle called a quark. A quark cannot exist on its own but must be bound to other quarks or an antiquark. So the energetic quark quickly rips more quarks and antiquarks out of the vacuum of empty space, and they instantaneously form particles called mesons, each containing a quark and an antiquark. From the energies and momenta of the two jets, researchers can infer the mass of the particle that produced them.

CDF researchers see about 250 events in which the jets seem to come from a particle weighing about 155 times as much as proton. Those events show up as an unexpected peak in a data plot (see diagram). The chances that random jets or jet pairs from other sources would produce a fake signal that strong are 1 in 1300, the physicists estimate. “We've been struggling for 6 months to make this peak go away, and we haven't been able to do it,” says Robert Roser, a physicist at Fermilab and co-spokesperson for the CDF team. Still, he says, the signal is “not even close” to strong enough to claim a discovery.

Experimenters have several reasons to be cautious. The analysis depends critically on physicists' understanding of jets. CDF does not measure every particle in a jet, so researchers must make a 25% upward correction to a jet's measured energy. If the uncertainty in that fudge factor is bigger than they estimate, “then maybe the excess isn't so significant,” says Shahram Rahatlou of Sapienza University of Rome.

CDF physicists must also take care that they haven't mistaken random pairs of jets for new particles. To see the peak, they must subtract out a huge “background” produced by events containing a W and random jets. If that subtraction isn't just right, it could produce a fake signal. “The real question is how well do we understand that [background],” says Joseph Lykken, a theorist at Fermilab.

But those caveats have not stopped theorists from trying to explain the curious bump in terms of new particles. Felix Yu, a theorist at the University of California, Irvine, suggests that the new particle could be one known as a Z′ (pronounced Z-prime), which would convey a new force much like a very short-range electromagnetic force. Estia Eichten, a theorist at Fermilab, and colleagues say the particle could be a “technipion,” a particle predicted by a type of theory called “technicolor,” which posits a new kind of strong nuclear force.

To have escaped notice until now, however, a particle would have to have some weird properties. Generally, a Z′ ought to decay into an electron and an antielectron. In fact, experimenters have already searched for and failed to find that decay. So Yu's Z′ must not decay that way for some reason. The technipion may face similar problems. CDF researchers are searching for the long-sought Higgs boson, the key to physicists' understanding of mass, by looking for events in which it is produced with a W boson and in which the Higgs decays into two jets specifically triggered by particles called bottom quarks. The hypothetical new particle hasn't shown up in those Higgs searches, so it must not often decay into bottom quarks, as one would expect a technipion to do.

For those reasons, some physicists say such explanations of the bump seem contrived or “unnatural.” “Yesterday, these models weren't popular,” Hill says. Yu counters that “having a theory that looks pretty but doesn't fit the data isn't natural.”

The supposed signal should be confirmed or ruled out in short order. The CDF team has analyzed only half of the data it has already collected. And the Tevatron's other large particle detector, D0, has a data set as big as CDF's. If the particle is there, D0 should see it, too. “We hope that within a few weeks you'll be hearing from us,” says Dmitri Denisov, a physicist at Fermilab and co-spokesperson for the D0 team. In the meantime, physicists will enjoy the buzz.

What happend at the Fukushima reactor ?

The 9.0 level earthquake took place in Japan and caused damage to the nuclear reactors. Now the media are disseminating and making up all kinds of bells and whistles around a possible disaster like Chernobly catastrophe. And the mass and some activists rise to protest against nuclear plants plan. So, the earnest question is, is the nuclear industry really so unsafe ? Here is an excellent article speaking of this. His view is that, the event in Japan witnessed the success of the modern technology, rather than a failure that is spread so widely in the media.

As a nuclear engineer, it is depressing to read the recent reports on the Fukushima nuclear incident — not because of the incident itself (at this point I strongly believe that we will remember Fukushima as evidence of how safe nuclear power is when done right) — but because the media coverage of the event has been rife with errors so glaring that I have to wonder if anyone in the world of journalism has ever taken a physics class. My favorite: in one article, boric acid was described as a “nutrient absorber” instead of a “neutron absorber.” How many editors signed off on that line without asking, “Why would a nuclear reactor need to absorb nutrients?”

Whether it is confusion of radiation with radioactive material, flailing comparisons to past accidents, or hopeless misuse of terminology, reporting on Fukushima has been a mix of hype and speculation entirely devoid of useful information. Let’s set the record straight: the situation is under control, it is unlikely that the nuclear fuel has melted, the risk to the public is effectively zero, and, depending on whether facts on the ground have been reported correctly, it is possible that the reactors will remain capable of producing power in the future.

Postdocs structured into a new permenent post ?

She thinks so:
" The scientific enterprise is run on what economists call the 'tournament' model, with practitioners pitted against one another in bitter pursuit of a very rare prize. Given that cheap and disposable trainees — PhD students and postdocs — fuel the entire scientific research enterprise, it is not surprising that few inside the system seem interested in change. A system complicit in this sort of exploitation is at best indifferent and at worst cruel. I have no doubt that most lab heads want the best for their many apprentices, but at the system level, the practice continues. Few academics could afford to warn trainees against entering the ring — if they frightened away their labour force, research would grind to a halt.

An alternative career structure within science that professionalizes mature postdocs would be better. Permanent research staff positions could be generated and filled with talented and experienced postdocs who do not want to, or cannot, lead a research team — a job that, after all, requires a different skill set. Every academic lab could employ a few of these staff along with a reduced number of trainees. Although the permanent staff would cost more, there would be fewer needed: a researcher with 10–20 years experience is probably at least twice as efficient as a green trainee. Academic labs could thus become smaller, streamlined and more efficient. The slightly fewer trainees in the pool would work in the knowledge that their career prospects are brighter, and that the system that trains them wants to nurture them, not suck them dry and spit them out. "[http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110302/full/471007a.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20110303]

Israel as a science based country

My impression is that, Israel is a great nation, scientific and religious.

Your readers deserve to see research metrics from the Arab world (Nature 469, 453 and 470, 147; 2011) compared with those of its nearest neighbour, Israel.

You compare the number of publications, researchers per million of population and the percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) expended on research and development (R&D). But all of your graphics omit Israel, even though the GDP graphic includes the European Union and Turkey.

The picture would be different had Israel's metrics been included. Israel published 14,943 papers in 2008 (Science Citation Index). In 2007, there were 7,841 researchers per million population, and civilian expenditure on R&D totalled 4.3% of GDP in 2009 — the highest percentage in the world (Central Bureau of Statistics, State of Israel).

From 1948, Israel and its Arab neighbours started on a roughly equal footing. Israel has achieved much, despite arguably being the poorer nation in terms of traditional measures such as land area, natural resources and freedom from conflict. Its strong investment in human capital, fostered by a free and open society, has produced six decades of spectacular growth. Those achievements stand in contrast to six decades of regrettably slow (and relatively static) progress in the Arab world. Your analysis would have been more accurately portrayed in this context. [http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v471/n7336/full/471037b.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20110303]

Faculty members in conflict with the university president

This story is definitely a reminder of similar things. It involves a famous materials scientist in Tohoku University, Inoue, who also serves as the president of this university. The clouds originate at four papers bearing his name in the 1990s, and could not abate even today, as told by Nature [http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110223/full/470446a.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20110224]:

The controversy has been simmering for more than three years, during which critics have repeatedly questioned the results of the four papers^1–4 by Inoue. An internal committee at the university assessed the criticisms and ruled that a formal investigation was not warranted. In the committee's December 2007 report, senior officials questioned whether the criticism was motivated by "malice" and "divorced from a pure concern for academic development". Since then, university faculty members have repeated the criticisms and raised others. But Inoue, a prolific specialist in an unusual form of alloy called metallic glasses, told Nature that his team has unique skills and experience in producing the alloys, which could explain why other scientists have failed to reproduce some of his lab's results.
.......

But in May 2007, a series of anonymous letters began arriving at Tohoku University and other places alleging that the four papers^1–4 co-authored by Inoue in the 1990s contained inconsistencies in the way that the data were presented. The letters also alleged that others in the field had been unable to reproduce the results.

In response to these allegations, Tetsuo Shoji, the university's executive vice-president for research affairs at the time, formed a five-person committee to decide whether a full-scale investigation was warranted. In December 2007, the committee issued a 12-page report that said there were "no rational grounds" for a full investigation. On the problem of irreproducibility, the report said: "various factors including the purity of materials … the cooling method, the protocols, temperature control, moisture control and time control can bring about differences in results, making it easy to imagine how problems in reproducing work might exist among researchers."

Nine metallic-glass experts outside Japan contacted by Nature generally lauded Inoue's contribution to the field. At least one, however, had specifically tried to produce some of the metallic glasses described in the papers^1–4 under discussion but had failed to achieve the large dimensions reported by Inoue. Two others were unable to reproduce other metallic-glass results from Inoue's laboratory.

..........

Omura and other critics also point out, however, that the committee included three people (Shoji, Makoto Watanabe and Keiichi Noe) who had been promoted to their current positions as executive vice-presidents by Inoue since he became university president in 2006. Inoue denies any influence over the committee's make-up. Shoji says that he and other committee members discussed the problem of conflict of interest but decided they would "be able to fairly evaluate the situation". Some critics believe that actual fairness is not enough, and that such a committee must also be seen to be free of any potential conflicts of interest.

In April 2008, university officials rebuffed Omura's letter, defending both the committee's operations and its conclusions.

But in July 2008, 11 researchers from Tohoku's Institute of Multidisciplinary Research for Advanced Materials sent a petition to the university calling for further explanation of the investigating committee's initial report. Attached to the petition was a covering letter by the institute's director, Fumio Saito (who had not signed the petition himself). Then, just over a month later, Saito sent a letter to all university divisions apologizing for implying in his covering letter that the petition expressed "the collective opinion of the institute". Saito's apology added to the controversy.

In yet another twist, in April 2009 a university committee chaired by Inoue temporarily postponed the granting of emeritus status to two retiring faculty members who had been involved with Omura on a website that collects information about the dispute. Emeritus status is customarily granted to retiring professors who have been at the university for at least seven years, as both had been. According to Yukihisa Kitamura, an executive vice-president at Tohoku University, it was a "rare" measure taken while the two were under investigation for allegedly "dishonouring the university" by being involved with the website. In June, with the investigation still under way, the university granted the two emeritus status.

The unrest looks set to continue. During April and May last year, three key science-funding agencies — the science and education ministry, the Science and Technology Agency and the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization — all asked Tohoku University to evaluate accusations raised by Omura and three others. Citing confidentiality rules, a lawyer representing Inoue and Tohoku University declined to say what actions the university would take in response to the requests. Zhang has not responded to Nature 's request for further comment.

..............

Japan has no external body, akin to the US Office of Research Integrity, for investigating alleged scientific misconduct, despite calls for one from some quarters¹⁶. Only the minister of education has authority over a university president, and Kosaku Okada, a representative from the ministry's division familiar with the case, says that the ministry will not get involved. "We see the president as just another scientist and so we leave it up to the university to do any investigation," he says. But an independent investigation may be the only way to silence the critics.

A movie on Einstein

Hi, man, as a fans of him, I'm excited to read this ! I have never seem a film acting this big man's real life. So, it is really a wonderful thing to wait this thing to come. I read a lot of things about Einstein, and I would like to wipe eyes to test my memory.

HSI Films will handle worldwide sales on “Einstein” and immediately introduce the project to distributors in Berlin.

Said Eric Christenson, “Coming aboard a project that teams Wayne Wang and Ron Bass is tremendously exciting, and we have something special on our hands with ‘Einstein.’ People know the name and the theories, yet most people don't know the fascinating details of his life's story.”

Koldo Eguren added, “People don't know about his struggles with poverty, his dyslexia, his love for music, his relationships with the women in his life, his persecution by the Nazis and his battle to deal with living in the public eye and being under constant scrutiny. Ron's screenplay peels back the layers and allows us to see past Einstein the scientist and Einstein the celebrity, showing us Einstein the man.”

Back from vacation

Just came back from vacation. Time needed to catch up with what happened in the last two weeks. haha...

Fermilab weighs adding 3 years running

Scientists at the last remaining U.S. particle physics lab have a shot at a major discovery. But pursuing that prize means delaying other projects that could enhance the lab's long-term viability. Should they still go for the glory?

That's the question facing Pier Oddone, director of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, Illinois. Last week, an independent advisory committee urged him to run the lab's 25-year-old atom smasher, the Tevatron collider, for an additional 3 years through 2014. The extension would give Fermilab researchers a chance to beat their European rivals in spotting the most prized particle in physics, the Higgs boson. That chance, the panel concluded, is worth potential disruption in the schedules of other projects. Unfortunately for Oddone, however, it could also cause problems for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), which funds the lab, and jeopardize the lab's future.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/329/5997/1266

New experiment alluding to the matter antimatter asymmetry

In a recent post, I mentioned an experiment measuring the production rates of muons and anti-muons in nuclear collisions and the results shows CP violation. Here is a new one on neutrino and anti-neutrino, which is also argued to display this violation.

Since the 1960s, physicists have been gathering evidence that neutrinos can switch, or oscillate, between three different flavors — muon, electron and tau, each of which has a different mass. However, they have not yet been able to rule out the possibility that more types of neutrino might exist.

In an effort to help nail down the number of neutrinos, MiniBooNE physicists send beams of neutrinos or antineutrinos down a 500-meter tunnel, at the end of which sits a 250,000-gallon tank of mineral oil. When neutrinos or antineutrinos collide with a carbon atom in the mineral oil, the energy traces left behind allow physicists to identify what flavor of neutrino took part in the collision. Neutrinos, which have no charge, rarely interact with other matter, so such collisions are rare.

MiniBooNE was set up in 2002 to confirm or refute a controversial finding from an experiment at the Liquid Scintillator Neutrino Detector (LSND) at Los Alamos National Laboratory. In 1990, the LSND reported that a higher-than-expected number of antineutrinos appeared to be oscillating over relatively short distances, which suggests the existence of a fourth type of neutrino, known as a “sterile” neutrino.

In 2007, MiniBooNE researchers announced that their neutrino experiments did not produce oscillations similar to those seen at LSND. At the time, they assumed the same would hold true for antineutrinos. “In 2007, I would have told you that you can pretty much rule out LSND,” says MIT physics professor Janet Conrad, a member of the MiniBooNE collaboration and an author of the new paper.

MiniBooNE then switched to antineutrino mode and collected data for the next three years. The research team didn’t look at all of the data until earlier this year, when they were shocked to find more oscillations than would be expected from only three neutrino flavors — the same result as LSND.

Already, theoretical physicists are posting papers online with theories to account for the new results. However, “there’s no clear and immediate explanation,” says Karsten Heeger, a neutrino physicist at the University of Wisconsin. “To nail it down, we need more data from MiniBooNE, and then we need to experimentally test it in a different way.”

The MiniBooNE team plans to collect antineutrino data for another 18 months. Conrad also hopes to launch a new experiment that would use a cyclotron, a type of particle accelerator in which particles travel in a circle instead of a straight line, to help confirm or refute the MiniBooNE results.

GOD PARTICLES ELUSIVE YET

Irresponsible scientists (are they really scientists ?) and media agencies spread a rumor about the Higgs boson, which are dismissed by Fermi Lab.

On Tuesday, the laboratory's Twitter feed said: "Let's settle this: the rumours spread by one fame-seeking blogger are just rumours. That's it."

Rumors dismissed by Fermi Lab

Folks at Fermilab, the national physics lab in Batavia, are dismissing rumors that they have found evidence pointing to the existence of the "God particle."

Folks at Fermilab, the national physics lab in Batavia, are dismissing rumors that they have found evidence pointing to the existence of the "God particle."

"Pure rumor. There is no factual basis to it whatsoever," Judy Jackson, director of public affairs at Fermi, said Tuesday of a blogger's report that worked its way all the way to Britain's Daily Telegraph online.

The rumored, highly elusive particle known formally at the Higgs boson — in honor of British physicist Peter Higgs — is believed to give mass to all things, a status that has led to its nickname.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/ct-talk-god-particle-0714-20100713,0,6952453.story

Ionic Liquid's Makeup Measurably Non-Uniform at the Nanoscale

Ionic liquids are liquids of ions. The reason why they stay in liquid rather than solid is because these ions are of big size. The big mass impedes the solidification which would happen due to electrostatic interactions. Different from conventional liquids like water, which are uniform and homogeneous throughout, ionic liquids were predicted to be non-uniform at nano-scale. Now this prediction was confirmed.

Their findings were published online in the Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter. The article was selected for inclusion in the Institute of Physics' IOP Select, which is a special collection of articles chosen by IOP editors based on research showing significant breakthroughs or advancements, high degree of novelty and significant impact on future research.

Ionic liquids are a new frontier of research for chemists. Originally invented to replace volatile and toxic solvents such as benzene, they’re now used in high-efficiency solar cells, as cheaper, more environmentally friendly rocket fuel additives and to more effectively dissolve plant materials into biofuels. Since 1990, research on ionic liquids has grown exponentially.

“Their properties are strikingly different than those of most conventional liquids,” said Edward Quitevis, a professor of chemistry in the Texas Tech Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. “A conventional liquid for the most part is composed of neutral molecules whereas an ionic liquid is composed entirely of ions.”

Because of their ability to be tailored and manipulated for specific applications, ionic liquids can be compared to a new form of Erector Set for chemists. By modifying the ions, scientists can create specific properties in the liquids to fit particular applications or discover new materials.

Each new discovery that adds to the understanding of ionic liquids leads to new possibilities for applications and materials, Quitevis said.

“An ionic liquid is basically a salt that happens to have a melting point at or about room temperature,” he said. “The reason why it’s a liquid and not a solid is because the ions are bulky and don’t crystallize readily. The more we learn about them, the more we can find new applications for them that we never could have imagined for conventional liquids.”

By using X-rays and lasers, researchers found that parts of the liquid at the nanoscopic level were not uniform. Some domains of the liquid may have had more or less density or viscosity compared to other domains. Also, these non-uniform domains could be measured.

“At the nanoscopic scale, these liquids are not uniform, compared to other liquids, such as water, where properties are all uniform throughout,” Quitevis said. “This non-uniformity is not random. These domains of non-uniformity are well defined and can be measured. And this nanoscopic non-uniformity was predicted in computer simulations, but never confirmed experimentally until recently.”

Understanding these types of attributes of ionic liquids can lead to more breakthroughs in the future, Quitevis said.