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The use of renewable resources as providers to the electrical grid is hampered by the intermittent and irregular nature in which they generate energy. Electrical energy storage technology could provide a solution and now, by using an iterative design process, a promising anolyte for use in redox flow batteries has been developed.
Vaccination with a synthetic glycoconjugate, in combination with the administration of an inhibitor that blocks capsular polysaccharide synthesis in bacteria, could offer an alternative route to combat bacterial infections.
Emulating the efficiency with which enzymes catalyse reactions has often been used as inspiration to develop self-assembled cages. Now two studies present approaches to achieving catalyst turnover — one of the biggest challenges in achieving truly biomimetic catalysis.
While there is some qualitative understanding of how excess protons behave in acidic aqueous solutions, there is still much to learn about the structures they form with water molecules. Now, 2D infrared spectroscopy has enabled the definite identification of the 'Zundel cation' in protonated liquid water and an approximate determination of its lifetime.
The discovery of a tetrapeptide containing a reactive cysteine provides a method to site-selectively modify peptides and proteins, even if other cysteine residues are present in the polypeptide chain.
The reactivity of glycosyl donors is often explained by invoking putative glycosyl cation intermediates but, until now, they have not been observed in the condensed phase.
