An illustration showing the back of a car with a hydrogen storage tank which shows a cutout that reveales a MOF structure

Hydrogen storage gets real

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As production costs fall and demand is poised to rocket, James Mitchell Crow finds the hydrogen economy is finally ready for take-off – as long as we can find ways to store it

An image showing drawings of historical artefacts

Chemical clocks for archaeological artefacts

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Radiocarbon dating is a standard technique, but what if your artefacts are inorganic? Rachel Brazil finds out how to accurately age pottery and even metals

News and business ▶

An image showing a bottle of N,N-Dimethylformamide

Enhancing solvents' sustainability

7 August 2019

Increased recycling and replacing toxic solvents with greener alternatives will reduce environmental impact

An image showing the Petro-Canada Refinery

Curbing industry’s carbon emissions

16 July 2019

Replacing fossil-fuelled furnaces with renewable electrical heating and cutting carbon from some heavy industries could make a serious dent in climate targets

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Female scientists’ pages keep disappearing from Wikipedia – what’s going on?

3 July 2019

A deletion battle over a black female chemist’s biography has put Wikipedia’s gender gap in the spotlight

Long reads ▶

An illustrated portrait of June Sutor

The forgotten female crystallographer who discovered C–H⋯O bonds

A photograph of Primo Levi; the tile of the chapters in his book, The Periodic Table, are written around him

Primo Levi and the other periodic table

An image showing a scrunched up piece of paper with the details of element 118 - Ninovium - Written down

Victor Ninov and the element that never was

A conceptual image showing the disability icon ascending on a slope formed by a graduation hat; the Braille alphabet and the alphabet in sign language can be seen on the background

Accessible science education

An image showing droplets on a rose petal; the fine surface structure of one of the droplets can be seen

Superhydrophobic materials from nature

An artistic representation of the periodic table based on the shape of a shell

The art of the periodic table

  • The forgotten female crystallographer who discovered C–H⋯O bonds

  • Primo Levi and the other periodic table

  • Victor Ninov and the element that never was

  • Accessible science education

  • Superhydrophobic materials from nature

  • The art of the periodic table

Careers ▶

A photograph of Primo Levi; the tile of the chapters in his book, The Periodic Table, are written around him

Primo Levi and the other periodic table

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Author and chemist Primo Levi was born 100 years ago this July. Philip Ball looks at his chemical and literary legacy – including his books The Periodic Table and If This Is a Man

An image showing a blue leaf

Taking a leaf out of plants’ books

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Learning to mimic natural photosynthesis on an industrial scale might open the door to a fossil fuel-free future. Nina Notman investigates

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