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Chemistry

Strange material made of soap could be used for photosynthesis

The first ever soap films with chemically distinct sides are a step towards cheap soap-based devices that could create useful chemicals through artificial photosynthesis

By Karmela Padavic-Callaghan

3 January 2024

The new soap film is created on a circular frame and contains molecules that glow

Sylvestre Bonnet

A soap film with one side chemically different from the other could be used for artificial photosynthesis in the future.

“All other soap films and bubbles made in the history of mankind have been the same [on both sides]. We are making the first ones that are not the same,” says Leif Hammarström at Uppsala University in Sweden.

Read more

Material made of carbon and nitrogen is nearly as hard as diamond

Hammarström and his colleagues created these films in an…

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