Innovation News: 9 August 2025 - 15 August 2025

The Enzyme Revolution: How Engineering Nature’s Catalysts is Transforming Medicine, Food & the Planet
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The Enzyme Revolution: How Engineering Nature’s Catalysts is Transforming Medicine, Food & the Planet

The global market for industrial enzymes was about $9 billion in 2019 and is projected to reach $13.8 billion by 2027. Site-directed mutagenesis, invented in the 1970s by Michael Smith, enables precise single-amino-acid changes in enzymes and earned him the 1993 Nobel
August 14, 2025
Vertical Solar Farms: How Bifacial Panels Are Revolutionizing Solar Energy in 2025

Vertical Solar Farms: How Bifacial Panels Are Revolutionizing Solar Energy in 2025

Vertical solar farms mount panels upright at 90° in north–south rows, using bifacial panels to harvest morning east light and afternoon west light for two daily power peaks. The Ashikaga City rice paddy project in Japan was installed in May 2024, yielded
August 10, 2025
CO₂ Capture Breakthroughs: Advanced Materials and Mega-Projects to Pull Carbon from Air and Industry

CO₂ Capture Breakthroughs: Advanced Materials and Mega-Projects to Pull Carbon from Air and Industry

In 2024 atmospheric CO2 reached about 426 parts per million, roughly 50% higher than pre-industrial levels. UC Berkeley researchers developed a zinc hydride MOF called ZnH-MFU-4_l that can capture CO₂ from hot flue gas at 300°C with over 90% efficiency, enabling potential
August 9, 2025
Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs): Sponge-Like Crystals Poised to Transform Carbon Capture, Clean Energy and More

Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs): Sponge-Like Crystals Poised to Transform Carbon Capture, Clean Energy and More

MOFs hold a world-record internal surface area of up to about 7,000 m^2 per gram, with theoretical designs up to 14,600 m^2/g. Over roughly 20 years researchers have created nearly 90,000 unique MOF structures, with hundreds of thousands more predicted by theory.
August 9, 2025