Case Studies

Natural gas is a cleaner alternative fuel to other petrochemicals and its use is considered to be an essential step in making Europe carbon neutral by 2050. When extracted it is cooled below -160 ºC (~113 K) to form liquid natural gas (LNG) which reduces its volume 600 times, allowing it to be more easily transported and stored...

Non-ionizing radiation in the radiofrequency range from 600 MHz to 300 GHz provides the basis for connectivity in mobile communication applications. Additionally, electromagnetic fields (EMFs) generated by inductively coupled coils at low frequencies (typically below 10 MHz) are widely used for contactless charging of household...

Ionizing radiation can cause sickness or even death in those exposed to it. Nuclear incidents can arise by accident or, potentially, by direct acts of terrorism. In both scenarios an accurate knowledge of the amount and type of radiation present is important to allow appropriate decisions and introduce countermeasures. Static ...

Major nuclear disasters are rare but when they occur large amounts of radionuclides, are released. In 1986 explosions at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (NPP) covered an area of Europe greater than 200 000 km2 with radioactive caesium and other radioactive nucleotides. Twenty-five years later, in 2011, a tsunami disrupted the...

Nanoparticles – materials for which at least half the constituent particles are smaller than 100 nanometres – exhibit unusual physical and chemical properties. At such scales the influences of surface atoms can dominate, producing characteristics exploitable in healthcare, including for cancer treatments. A promising drug deli...

Graphene is a lattice of carbon only one atom thick. Despite being effectively two-dimensional (2D) it is the strongest material ever discovered with a tensile strength over 200 times stronger than structural steel. It also has the lowest room-temperature electrical resistivity of any known material and its high electron mobili...