Beijing Huairou Science City released blockbuster results! One of them extends Maxwell's equations

The Beijing Institute of Nanoenergy and Systems of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which was relocated to Huairou Science City in September last year, has borne fruit on this soil of original innovation. On January 13, the Institute of NanoEnergy of the Chinese Academy of Sciences held a press conference and released two blockbuster scientific research results led by Academician Wang Zhonglin, director and chief scientist. One of the two achievements is to revise and expand the classical physical theory Maxwell's equation system, and introduce a more perfect "calculation formula" for the velocity term; the other is to propose a new catalytic mechanism of contact electrocatalysis in addition to the existing three types of catalysts, which will expand the catalyst to chemically inert materials, or will be applied in many fields such as carbon neutralization, sewage treatment, hydrogen production, and pharmaceutical synthesis.

The system of equations established by the British physicist Maxwell unified electricity, magnetism and optics, achieving a great unification in the field of classical physics in history, so Maxwell's equations are considered to be one of the greatest and brilliant achievements of physics. However, this classical theoretical system of equations also has shortcomings, that is, the lack of a description of the moving medium. "If the medium is moving, such as a plane, train, etc. moving at high speed, this equation will not be strictly valid." Academician Wang Zhonglin explained. In view of this deficiency, he led the team to conduct years of research and experimental verification, successfully added velocity terms to Maxwell's equations, corrected and expanded a more perfect "calculation formula", and the relevant results have been recently published in the international academic journal "Materials Today", which has become an important contribution made by Chinese scientific research institutions to the innovation of classical physics basic theories.

What is the significance of expanding Maxwell's equations? This means that it will be possible to calculate more precisely the relevant electromagnetic characteristics of objects moving at high speeds. Academician Wang Zhonglin gave an example: "In the past, when we took the high-speed rail, we would feel that the mobile phone signal was good and bad, very unstable, which was related to the inability to accurately detect the interaction between high-speed moving objects and electromagnetic waves. "With the expanded system of equations, it will be able to detect high-speed high-speed rails, aircraft, missiles, and even planetary operations, etc., and solve the problems of high-speed moving target interaction with electromagnetic waves, scattered electromagnetic wave detection and accurate extraction of target features." Not only that, but this achievement will also have great potential application prospects in the future in radar, antennas, aviation, aerospace and military fields that require wireless communication.

In addition to the blockbuster results of this basic physical theory, another scientific research result was released on the same day - contact electrocatalytic mechanism. From the ancients using enzymes to make wine to make vinegar, to the early days of the industrial revolution, people used lead chambers to make sulfuric acid, and then to today's chemical products 85% are inseparable from the catalytic reaction, catalytic reaction can be said to run through the history of human development, and is closely related to life.

At present, catalysts can be divided into three categories according to types: metal-based catalysts, bio-based catalysts and organic small molecules. What academician Wang Zhonglin and researcher Tang Wei proposed this time is a new catalytic mechanism and a catalyst with wider materials. It takes advantage of the electron transfer caused by the common contact between materials to act as the core of the catalytic reaction and promote the chemical reaction.

Speaking of the advantages of this catalytic mechanism, Wang Zhonglin analyzed that it is very common for materials to be charged through contact friction, and there are many materials to choose from, which means that the application of this catalytic mechanism may have many advantages such as strong operability, lower cost, less pollution, and easier separation of catalytic materials from the product. He further gave examples, such as in the field of sewage treatment, the catalyst currently used faces the problem of separating the catalyst after treating the sewage, otherwise it may cause secondary pollution. However, using contact electrocatalysis, more environmentally friendly and easily separated materials can be selected to achieve the purpose of catalytic degradation.

In addition to sewage treatment, hydrogen production, pharmaceutical synthesis, carbon dioxide capture and many other fields may be applied to the new mechanism of contact electrocatalysis. "These are also our next steps, and many applications of contact electrocatalysis will help achieve the goal of 'double carbon'." Wang Zhonglin said.