Chemistry

Welch Foundation

Largest gift in Rice history establishes The Welch Institute

The Robert A. Welch Foundation announces the largest single gift in the history of Rice University, $100 million, to establish The Welch Institute for world-leading advanced materials research.

Scientists at Rice University and the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) uncovered new clues in the protein CPEB3 as part of their dogged pursuit of the mechanism that allows humans to have long-term memories. Researchers at Rice University modeled the binding structures of actin and associated proteins they believe are responsible for the formation of longterm memory. Here, the beta hairpin form of zipper sequence is a potential core for the formation of intramolecular beta she

Protein ‘chameleon’ colors long-term memory

Researchers model the binding structures of actin and associated proteins they believe are responsible for the formation of longterm memory.

"Backward" Design Flow Chart

Remote control: CTE’s Adaptive Course Design Institute prepares professors for teaching online

Rice professors set it all aside this summer to learn all about the best new tools for teaching online.

The cross-section of a fiber produced at Rice University contains tens of millions of carbon nanotubes. The lab continually improves its method to make fibers, which tests show are now stronger than Kevlar. Courtesy of the Pasquali Research Group

No limit yet for carbon nanotube fibers

Rice University researchers report advances in their quest to make the best carbon nanotube fibers for industry.

Martí named fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry

Laser-induced silicon oxide for lithium metal batteries

Tale of the tape: Sticky bits make better batteries

Rice University scientists use an industrial laser to turn adhesive tape into a component for safer, anode-free lithium metal batteries.

Artificial enzymes made of treated charcoal, seen in this atomic force microscope image, could have the power to curtail damaging levels of superoxides, toxic radical oxygen ions that appear at high concentrations after an injury. (Credit: Tour Group/Rice University)

Charcoal a weapon to fight superoxide-induced disease, injury

Artificial enzymes made of treated charcoal could have the power to curtail damaging levels of superoxides that appear after an injury.

A model by Rice University scientists shows how two positively charged spheres attached to springs are attracted to the electric field of light. Due to the motion of the spheres, the spring system scatters light at different energies when irradiated with clockwise and anticlockwise trochoidal waves. (Credit: Link Research Group/Rice University)

Cartwheeling light reveals new optical phenomenon

Researchers at Rice University have discovered details about a novel type of polarized light-matter interaction with light that literally turns end over end as it propagates from a source.

James Tour

Tour scores prestigious Centenary Prize

Rice University chemist James Tour has been named a winner of this year’s Royal Society of Chemistry Centenary Prize.

Naomi Halas is a Rice University engineer and chemist who's spent more than 25 years pioneering the use of light-activated nanomaterials.

Purifying water with a partly coated gold nanoparticle

Rice's Naomi Halas has collaborated with Yale University engineers on the creation of a light-activated nanoparticle for clearing water of pollutants. The research is part of an effort by NEWT, the Rice-based Nanosystems Engineering Research Center for Nanotechnology-Enabled Water Treatment.

Figure depicting the action of an aluminum-palladium antenna-reactor nanocatalyst that harnesses light energy to break chemical bonds in fluorocarbons

Fluorocarbon bonds are no match for light-powered nanocatalyst

Rice University engineers have created a light-powered catalyst that can break the strong chemical bonds in fluorocarbons, a group of synthetic materials that includes persistent environmental pollutants.

Rice University scientists’ simple model of T cell activation of the immune response shows the T cell binding, via a receptor (TCR) to an antigen-presenting cell (APC). If an invader is identified as such, the response is activated, but only if the “relaxation” time of the binding is long enough. (Credit: Hamid Teimouri/Rice University)

‘Relaxed’ T cells critical to immune response

Rice University researchers model the role of relaxation time as T cells bind to invaders or imposters, and how their ability to differentiate between the two triggers the body’s immune system.

Rice scientists found certain combinations of weakly bound 2D materials let holes and electrons combine into excitons at the materials’ ground state. Courtesy of the Yakobson Research Group

Excitons form superfluid in certain 2D combos

Mixing and matching computational models of 2D materials led scientists at Rice University to the realization that excitons can be manipulated in new and useful ways.

The design of thio-based photosensitizers, at left, by Rice University chemists shows promise for photodynamic cancer therapy, among other applications. One thiocarbonyl substitution -- trading an oxygen atom for a sulfur atom -- of a variety of fluorophores can dramatically enhance their ability to generate reactive oxygen species that kill cancer cells. At right, images of multicellular tumor spheroids treated with photosensitizers and light (in the bottom row) show how the compounds, when excited by ligh

Rice lab turns fluorescent tags into cancer killers

Fluorophores with one oxygen atom replaced by a sulfur atom can be triggered with light to create reactive oxygen species within cancer cells, killing them.

A graphic shows the process by which a Rice University lab uses 3D printing to make shapeshifting materials that may be useful to make soft robots or as biomedical implants. (Credit: Verduzco Laboratory/Rice University)

Lab makes 4D printing more practical

Soft robots and biomedical implants that reconfigure themselves upon demand are closer to reality with a method developed at Rice to print shapeshifting materials.