Related papers: Ionic Liquid Biospheres
The recent discovery and initial characterization of sub-Neptune-sized exoplanets that receive stellar irradiance of approximately Earth's raised the prospect of finding habitable planets in the coming decade, because some of these…
In this work, we present the first example of the self-assembly of phospholipid monolayers at the interface between air and an ionic solvent. Deep eutectic solvents are a novel class of environmentally friendly non-aqueous room temperature…
The Habitable Zone (HZ) is defined by the possibility of sustaining liquid water on a planetary surface. In the Solar System, the HZ for a conservative climate model extends approximately between the orbits of Earth and Mars. We elaborate…
The movement of ionic solutions is an essential part of biology and technology. Fluidics, from nano- to micro- to microfluidics, is a burgeoning area of technology which is all about the movement of ionic solutions, on various scales. Many…
We have established the detailed phase diagram of the prototypical deep eutectic solvent ethaline (ethylene glycol / choline chloride 2:1) as a function of the hydration level, in the bulk state and confined in the nanochannels of…
The synthesis of water is one necessary step in the origin and development of life. It is believed that pristine water is formed and grows on the surface of icy dust grains in dark interstellar clouds. Until now, there has been no…
Plate tectonics is a fundamental component for the habitability of the Earth. Yet whether it is a recurrent feature of terrestrial bodies orbiting other stars or unique to the Earth is unknown. The stagnant lid may rather be the most common…
Understanding the set of conditions that allow rocky planets to have liquid water on their surface -- in the form of lakes, seas or oceans -- is a major scientific step to determine the fraction of planets potentially suitable for the…
Disordered systems like liquids, gels, glasses, or granular materials are not only ubiquitous in daily life and in industrial applications but they are also crucial for the mechanical stability of cells or the transport of chemical and…
Water is the matrix of life and is generally considered a homogeneous, uniform, liquid. Recent experiments report that water is instead a two-state liquid. However, subsequently, these findings were contested. The structure of water and…
Rocky planet atmospheres form and evolve through interactions between the planet's surface and interior. If a growing rocky planet acquires enough mass prior to the dissipation of the nebular gas disk, it can gravitationally capture a…
The decay of correlations in ionic fluids is a classical problem in soft matter physics that underpins applications ranging from controlling colloidal self-assembly to batteries and supercapacitors. The conventional wisdom, based on…
Lithium-salt-based deep eutectic solvents, where the only cation is Li+, are promising candidates as electrolytes in electrochemical energy-storage devices like batteries. We have performed broadband dielectric spectroscopy on three such…
Standard definitions of habitability assume that life requires the presence of planetary gravity wells to stabilize liquid water and regulate surface temperature. Here the consequences of relaxing this assumption are evaluated. Temperature,…
Under both engineering and natural conditions on Earth and in the Universe, some gas hydrates are found to be stabilised outside their window of thermodynamic stability by the formation of an ice layer-a phenomenon termed self-preservation.…
We consider a model of liquid crystals, based on a nonlinear hyperbolic system of differential equations, that represents an inviscid version of the model proposed by Qian and Sheng. A new concept of dissipative solution is proposed, for…
Climate emergency has led to the investigation of CO$_{2}$ valorization routes. A competitive process included in this framework is the catalytic CO$_{2}$ cycloaddition to epoxides, to produce cyclic carbonates. Halide-based Ionic liquids…
Ionic liquid crystals (ILCs) are anisotropic mesogenic molecules which additionally carry charges. This combination gives rise to a complex interplay of the underlying (anisotropic) contributions to the pair interactions. It promises…
Deep eutectic solvents with admixed lithium salts are considered as electrolytes in electrochemical devices like batteries or supercapacitors. Compared to eutectic mixtures of hydrogen-bond donors and lithium salts, their raw-material costs…
Contrary to popular belief, the interstellar medium (ISM) is not empty; it is filled with atoms, dust particles, and molecules. Some of these molecules may have been the very building blocks of life that, delivered to Earth via comets and…