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Hybrid organic-inorganic materials, which were developed approximately twenty years ago – notably by Gérard Férey, laureate of the CNRS 2010 Gold Medal, and his team – are known firstly for their extreme porosity. This remarkable property offers a diverse range of applications in the fields of energy, health, and sustainable development.

In the race towards miniaturization, a French-US team—mostly involving researchers from the CNRS, Université de Lille, Université de Nantes and Argonne National Laboratory (US) as part of the Research Network on Electrochemical Energy Storage (RS2E) 1 —has succeeded in improving the energy density of a rechargeable battery without increasing its size (limited to a few square millimeters in mobile sensors).

It is one of the oldest fragrances in the world. Nicolas Baldovini's team at the Institut de chimie de Nice (CNRS/UNS) has just discovered the components that give frankincense its distinctive odor: two molecules found for the first time in nature, named “olibanic acids” by the scientists. Their research results have just been published online, on the website of the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition .

Mercury is a potent neurotoxin present in our daily lives and our body can accumulate it over the years.

First discovered by sailors, the masses of plastic debris floating at the center of vast ocean vortices called gyres are today under close scrutiny by scientists. To better understand the fragmentation of microplastics under the effect of light and abrasion by waves, researchers combined physico-chemical analyses with statistical modeling.

Researchers have for the first time shown that ribose, a sugar that is one of the building blocks of genetic material in living organisms, may have formed in cometary ices. To obtain this result, scientists at the Institut de Chimie de Nice (CNRS/Université Nice Sophia Antipolis) carried out a highly detailed analysis of an artificial comet created by their colleagues at the Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale (CNRS/Université Paris-Sud).

High-tech sponges of the infinitely small, nanoporous materials can capture and release gaseous or liquid chemicals in a controlled way.

Wood has many uses, which require to know its shrinking 1 and swelling capacity in relation to humidity (known as dimensional stability). Researchers from the CNRS and Cirad 2 have shown that in Bagassa guianensis , a fast-growing Guianese tree, the secondary metabolites, whose main purpose is to defend the tree against insects and fungi, also serve to reduce shrinkage.

In addition to precipitation, clouds influence the climate in various ways: they cover 70% of the Earth's surface and represent nearly 15% of the volume of the atmosphere. Scientists need to understand their underlying chemical and physical mechanisms in order to better integrate them into climate change models.

Although shale gas development is attracting a lot of attention, the recovery method used, hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is raising increasing concerns. In order to develop more environmentally friendly methods, researchers need models and simulations validated by experiment and capable of reconstructing the complexity of such geological structures.

Catalytic nanoparticles contain various sites: for instance, the sites C (center of a hexagonal facet; nine neighbors marked in yellow), E (edge between two hexagonal facets; seven neighbors in green) and K (kink, at the corner between three facets; six neighbors in purple). Atoms at edges and terraces appear in light and dark blue, respectively.

Catalytic nanoparticles contain various sites: for instance, the sites C (center of a hexagonal facet; nine neighbors marked in yellow), E (edge between two hexagonal facets; seven neighbors in green) and K (kink, at the corner between three facets; six neighbors in purple). Atoms at edges and terraces appear in light and dark blue, respectively.