Chemistry

I left graduate school hoping never to see a gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) ever again. My thesis project of more than 30 years ago required the analytical power promised by the combination of chromatographic separation and positive identification with a mass spectrometer. That power was embodied in a frequently temperamental, relatively high-maintenance early benchtop instrument…

An international team of scientists is getting closer to perfecting molecule-sized motors that drill through the surface of cancer cells, killing them in an instant. Researchers at Rice University, Durham (U.K.) University and North Carolina State University reported their success at activating the motors with precise two-photon excitation via near-infrared light. Unlike the ultraviolet light…

Ladder polymers — molecules made of adjacent rings sharing two or more atoms — are challenging to synthesize, because they require highly selective, quantitative reactions to avoid the formation of branching structures or of interruptions in the ring sequence in the polymer chain. Moreover, most existing strategies for the synthesis of ladder polymers suffer from…

Researchers at Ruhr-Universität Bochum and the Fritz Haber Institute Berlin have developed a new method of using rare and expensive catalysts as sparingly as possible. They enclosed a precious metal salt in outer shells, tiny micelles, and had them strike against a carbon electrode, thus coating the surface with nanoparticles of the precious metal contained…

Polymers are usually the go-to material for thermal insulation. Think of a silicone oven mitt, or a Styrofoam coffee cup, both manufactured from polymer materials that are excellent at trapping heat. Now MIT engineers have flipped the picture of the standard polymer insulator, by fabricating thin polymer films that conduct heat — an ability normally…

Drawing design inspiration from the skin of stealthy sea creatures, engineers at the University of California, Irvine have developed a next-generation, adaptive space blanket that gives users the ability to control their temperature. The innovation is detailed in a study published today in Nature Communications. “Ultra-lightweight space blankets have been around for decades – you…

Scientists from ITMO University have developed and applied a new method for analyzing the electromagnetic field inside ion traps. For the first time, they explained the field deviations inside nonlinear radio-frequency traps. This allows to reconsider the prospects nonlinear traps applications, including ion cooling and studies of quantum phenomena. The results are published in the…

A one-step method enables scalable and more environmentally friendly production of plant-derived plastic monomers, paving the way towards the mass production of a sustainable alternative to petroleum-based materials. An international team, including Kiyotaka Nakajima of Hokkaido University, Japan, and Emiel Hensen of Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands, has developed an energy-efficient method to synthesize…

In liquid crystals, molecules automatically arrange themselves in an ordered fashion. Researchers from the University of Luxembourg have discovered a method that allows an anti-ordered state, which will enable novel material properties and potentially new technical applications, such as artificial muscles for soft robotics. They published their findings in the scientific journal Science Advances. The…

What happens if your gas mixing ratios or compositions are off in your experiment? You must start over because now your data is corrupt. One way to remove this variable is to choose the right flow controller to control two or more gases to form a mixture (blended) in a chamber until the specified concentrations…

Being able to watch how molecules bend, stretch, break, or transform, during chemical reactions requires, to an extent, state-of-the-art instruments and techniques that can observe and track, with sub-atomic spatial and few-femtoseconds temporal resolution, all the atoms within a molecule and how they behave during such a change. About 20 years ago, scientists came up…

A new ultra-sensitive heat sensor could have applications in everything from smart bandages to smart buildings, thanks to a new polymer mixture that yields strong signals with just slight temperature differences. Researchers from the Laboratory of Organic Electronics at Linköping University created the flexible, transparent and printable sensors by utilizing certain thermoelectric materials. “The material…

Japanese scientists have developed a technique to transform a copper-based substance into a material that mimics properties of precious and pricey metals such as gold and silver. The new medium, made of copper nanoparticles (very small copper-based structures) has promising applications in the production of electronic devices that would otherwise depend on expensive gold and…

A chemical reaction transforms the molecules that make up matter. To influence chemical reactions, chemists typically act on the molecules themselves, rather than the space in which the reaction takes places. However, researchers at the University of Strasbourg have shown that chemical reactions can indeed be influenced simply by conducting them between two appropriately spaced…

A new “oil-and-vinegar” approach to self-assembling materials with unusual architectures comprised of spherical nanoparticles could be useful for a number of applications including optics, plasmonics, electronics and multi-stage chemical catalysis. A research team from Duke University has developed a new technique that takes advantage of the layers formed by liquids that refuse to mix together,…

To assess differences and trends in personal chemical exposure, Oregon State University researchers deployed chemical-sampling wristbands to individuals on three continents. After they analyzed the wristbands that were returned, they found that no two wristbands had identical chemical detections. But the same 14 chemicals were detected in more than 50 percent of the wristbands returned…

The volume of biopharmaceuticals reaching the clinic continues to increase, and these products now account for an estimated 40 percent of the overall pharmaceutical pipeline, according to a recent report from industry consultants BioPlan Associates. Monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) are currently amongst the largest of the different classes of biotherapeutic products, with their success driven in…

Supported single metal atoms have attracted broad interest for their demonstrated high efficiency in single metal catalysis. The preparation of such catalysts, however, remains challenging as the neutral metal atoms have a strong tendency to agglomerate to metal particles in typical preparations. Researchers at the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP) of the Chinese Academy…