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A rapid route to synthesise graphene capsules has been developed by researchers in the US and Korea. The capsules can be nano-engineered on demand and show promise in oil absorption. After oil uptake the capsules aggregate on the water surface allowing them to be collected Hollow spheres of graphene or graphene oxide (GO) have previously been made, but usually via complicated routes that involve the assembly of GO sheets onto template particles and then a separate template removal step. Now, a team led by Jiaxing Huang at Northwestern University and HeeDong Jang at the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral...

A team of chemical engineers led by Paul J. Dauenhauer of the University of Massachusetts Amherst has discovered a new, high-yield method of producing the key ingredient used to make plastic bottles from biomass. The process is inexpensive and currently creates the chemical p-xylene with an efficient yield of 75-percent, using most of the biomass feedstock, Dauenhauer says. The research is published in the journal ACS Catalysis. Dauenhauer, an assistant professor of chemical engineering at UMass Amherst, says the new discovery shows that there is an efficient, renewable way to produce a chemical that has immediate and recognizable use for...

Researchers at Cornell University in the US have challenged prevailing fuel cell wisdom by throwing out three standard characteristics of today's mainstream systems to drive down their cost. Héctor Abruña and Abraham Stroock's team changed the fuel and oxidant chemicals used and the cell design that keeps them apart, getting power densities above 0.25 W/cm2. 'What we attain is extraordinary for a device that simple,' Abruña  tells Chemistry World.  'Fuel cells for automotive applications are typically around 1-2W/cm2. It's not that far off.'   The microfluidic fuel cell doesn't need an expensive Nafion membrane to keep the fuel and oxidant separate © Cornell...

The list of remarkable applications for graphene grows ever longer. This time, scientists in the US and Korea have shown that the single-atom thick carbon membrane can be used as a cover slip for an electron microscope to allow atomic-resolution observations of wet chemistry - something that is notoriously tricky to achieve. The graphene cover slip allows researchers to watch liquid chemistry taking place in much greater detail © Image courtesy of Alivisatos, Lee and Zettl research groups, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and KAIST The researchers wanted to investigate how platinum nanocrystals form from solution. 'Seeing the crystals form at...

Squeezing hydrogen at extreme pressures changes it into a mix of honeycombed atoms layered with free-floating molecules — an entirely new state of the element and the first new phase found in decades. If confirmed, the discovery will be only the fourth known phase of hydrogen, the simplest element and one long probed for basic insights into the nature of matter. “I think we have pretty bulletproof evidence that there is a new phase,” says Eugene Gregoryanz of the University of Edinburgh, leader of the team that will report the work in an upcoming Physical Review Letters. Hydrogen’s first three...

Enlarge Image The new graphene. Graphyne may be less famous than graphene, but it could have better electronic properties. Credit: D. Malko et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. (2012) Graphene, a layer of graphite just one atom thick, isn't called a wonder material for nothing. The subject of the 2010 Nobel Prize in physics, it is famed for its superlative mechanical and electronic properties. Yet new computer simulations suggest that the electronic properties of a little-known sister material of graphene—graphyne—may in some ways be better. The simulations show that graphyne's conduction electrons should travel extremely fast—as they do in graphene—but...

Highly sensitive explosives could become safer and greener by exploiting newly characterised ionic polymer structures, say chemists in the US. Such materials could replace explosives based on toxic heavy metals like lead and mercury salts.Sensitive materials are routinely used as primary explosives in detonators to set off larger amounts of less sensitive high explosives in mining or military applications. The challenge is to make them stable enough to be handled safely in the field, but also sensitive enough to detonate reliably, packing as much energetic punch as possible. 'It's a very fine balance,' says Louisa Hope-Weeks of Texas Tech University...

Spectroscopy, a key method of identifying atoms and molecules with light, has been taken to its most fundamental level - a single photon absorbed by a single molecule. In addition to paving the way toward new experiments that observe the interaction between light and matter at its most basic level, the researchers that accomplished the feat suggest that their technique could also work with other photon-emitters, including those under study for quantum communication.Spectroscopy works by finding the frequencies of light that will put an atom or molecule into an excited state - these comprise the chemical's unique absorption and emission...

A metallic lattice of hair-thin pipes is now the lightest solid yet created — less dense than air, scientists revealed. The strategy used to create these intricate structures could lead to revolutionary materials of extraordinary strength and lightness, including ones made of diamond, researchers added. Ultra-lightweight materials such as foams are widely used in thermal insulation and to dampen sounds, vibrations and shocks. They can also serve as scaffolds for battery electrodes and catalytic systems.

A chemist with the Food and Drug Administration pleaded guilty Tuesday to using a confidential drug database to earn nearly $3.8 million by trading the stock of companies with new drug applications.

Enlarge Image Crystallized. Winner Daniel Shechtman and an atomic model of a quasicrystal (inset). Credit: The Ames Laboratory/DOE This year's Nobel Prize for chemistry goes to a scientist whose controversial discovery forced chemists to redefine the concept of a crystal. In 1982, Daniel Shechtman of the Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa discovered an alloy of aluminum and manganese that appeared to have fivefold symmetry—that is, the atoms in it formed a pattern that appeared essentially the same when rotated by a fifth of a turn, or 72 degrees. Other researchers scoffed, as such arrangement was thought to be...

<p>JERUSALEM — JERUSALEM (AP) - When Israeli scientist Dan Shechtman claimed to have stumbled upon a new crystalline chemical structure that seemed to violate the laws of nature, colleagues mocked him, insulted him and exiled him from his research group.</p>

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2011 to Daniel Shechtman Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel "for the discovery of quasicrystals" A remarkable mosaic of atoms In quasicrystals, we find the fascinating mosaics of the Arabic world reproduced at the level of atoms: regular patterns that never repeat themselves. However, the configuration found in quasicrystals was considered impossible, and Daniel Shechtman had to fight a fierce battle against established science. The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2011 has fundamentally altered how chemists conceive of solid matter.

Researchers in the UK and Belgium have measured the work performed by a single manmade molecule. The result demonstrates that manmade molecules can generate similar forces to natural molecular machines, and could help chemists to design artificial molecular machines for meaningful tasks. Many biological molecules can perform useful work. The protein motors kinesin and dynein, for example, transport cargo around cells using the chemical energy stored in ATP, the chemical fuel of biological systems. Scientists have created their own molecular machines that perform useful work, such as moving liquid droplets uphill or rotating microscale objects. But these synthetic machines have all...

Energy-harvesting windows are a step closer with the development of a transparent lithium ion battery, created by US researchers at Stanford University. The electrodes are confined to a grid 35µm wide, making them too narrow to be perceived by the naked eye.The electrodes pose the biggest challenge to transparent lithium ion batteries, as both anode and cathode materials are typically opaque. Yi Cui's team solved this problem by making them very thin. They set the electrode materials into a grid of trenches in clear polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). By stacking and aligning the grids with additional layers of electrodes, it is possible...

Where sea meets sky, there are lots of water molecules with an identity crisis. About a quarter of the H2O in water’s uppermost layer can’t decide whether to be liquid or gas: One hydrogen atom stays in the drink while the other pokes up, vibrating in the air. This layer of molecular ambiguity is extremely thin and has little or no effect on the water below it, new data reported June 9 in Nature show. Right beneath the liquid’s surface, water molecules go about their business just as if the air weren’t there. That may seem like a dull discovery,...

Enlarge Image Light Therapy. Metal atoms (circles) absorb UV light, allowing them to move and reform bonds with binding groups on polymers (semicircles), healing a damaged polymer. Credit: Gina Fiore for Adolphe Merkle Institute/Case Western Reserve University/US Army Research Laboratory. Leave your child’s plastic toys out in the backyard over the summer, and the sun’s ultraviolet (UV) rays bleach them and make them brittle. But UV light can be a healer, too, according to a new study. Researchers have created a polymer that mends itself when hit with a bright beam of UV light. The new self-healing plastic could...

Light bulbs rely not only on simple materials but on esoteric ions and compounds. And while we take their emissions, visible light, for granted, the inner workings of these deceivingly simple gadgets depend on the complex behavior of electrons. We’ll discuss four types of light bulbs:incandescent bulbs, halogens, fluorescent lights (including CFL’s) and LED’s. A) INCANDESCENT BULBS The light bulb of the short-lived variety, is the traditional tungsten incandescent bulb. Inside the glass, electricity flows through a thin filament of the element tungsten (chemical symbol, W, for its old name wolfram). Because the wire is so thin, resistance is high,...

Since the time humans first began to control fire around 400,000 years ago we have had just a few simple tools to douse the flames. Now some Harvard University chemists believe they have found a way to bring fire suppression into the digital age by controlling flames with electricity. During a series of experiments to study the chemical nature of fire, scientists were surprised to learn that by applying an electrical field to a burning flame it easily went out. All they needed to do is wave a wand-like, electrified metal wire near the flame. ‘What did I do wrong?’...

The reanalysis of a 1958 experiment suggests that volcanic eruptions may have spawned the amino acids that contributed to the rise of life on earth Scientific debates don't get much hotter than the one surrounding the origin of organic molecules at the dawn of life on Earth. New findings, based on a reanalysis of a 50-year-old experiment, suggests that ancient volcanic activity was the source of the very first amino acids. In the 1950s, Stanley Miller and Harold Urey of the University of Chicago performed a series of "spark discharge" experiments, in which the researchers applied electrical sparks-- meant to...

Scientists in the US have made a system that rapidly detects both explosives and nerve agents, providing a simple yes-no response. The technique could replace two time-consuming tests that are currently used to assess these threats.Joseph Wang and colleagues from the University of California, San Diego, combined their expertise in threat detection and electrochemical biosensors with the biocomputing experience of Evgeny Katz from Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY. The team produced an enzyme-based logic gate with the ability to simultaneously detect both nitroaromatic explosives and organophosphate nerve agents. The team fed 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT) and the nerve agent paraoxon into the system, in which a series of...

An iron-rich, porous material can remove arsenic from drinking water in under two hours, say Chinese scientists. Arsenic is notoriously toxic, proving fatal to the majority of living organisms in high doses. Elevated levels of arsenic in groundwater in countries such as Bangladesh pose a serious threat to human health. But traditional methods to remove the arsenic struggle to eliminate the more dominant arsenic ion, arsenite. Now, Kang Li and colleagues from Harbin Medical University have removed arsenite from water samples using ferrihydrite - a low cost, natural mineral found on the Earth's surface. Already known to absorb arsenic, its efficiency is...

1. Decision Points by George W. Bush is the number one best seller on college campuses, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. 2. 2011 is the international year of chemistry. 3. This is school choice week. 4. More than one-third of D. C. teachers turned down bonuses because they were tied to job performance. 5. “A former McKinley Technology High School teacher was charged with second degree theft Thursday in connection with a $100,000 grant that D. C. school officials say vanished,” Lisa Gartner and Scott McCabe reported in The Washington Examiner on Friday, January 24, 2011. “Rick Kelsey...

Synthetic chemist David Nichols describes how his research on psychedelic compounds has been abused — with fatal consequences. This is the start of the international year of chemistry, intended to celebrate the contribution of my field to mankind's well-being. Yet, during the previous year it has become disturbingly clear to me that some of my scientific contributions may not be aiding people's well-being at all. In fact, they could be causing real harm. A few weeks ago, a colleague sent me a link to an article in the Wall Street Journal. It described a "laboratory-adept European entrepreneur" and his chief...

What discoveries caused the biggest buzz in chemistry labs around the world in 2010? With the help of an expert panel of journal editors, Chemistry World reviews the ground breaking research and important trends in the year's chemical science papers.SpaceMany discoveries came from outer space in 2010. This included the work by Jan Cami of the University of Western Ontario, Canada, and colleagues, who used an infrared spectrograph to identify buckminsterfullerene (C60) and C70 in the planetary nebula Tc 1 (Chemistry World  (CW) September, p21).1 This discovery helps back up theories about diffuse interstellar bands (DIBs), absorption lines in astronomical spectra....

For the first time in history, a change will be made to the atomic weights of some elements listed on the Periodic table of the chemical elements posted on walls of chemistry classrooms and on the inside covers of chemistry textbooks worldwide. The new table, outlined in a report released this month, will express atomic weights of 10 elements - hydrogen, lithium, boron, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, silicon, sulfur, chlorine and thallium - in a new manner that will reflect more accurately how these elements are found in nature. "For more than a century and a half, many were taught to...

Enlarge Image Catalysts are prized for their ability to speed chemical reactions by grabbing molecular building blocks and knitting them together. But most catalysts are either on or off—and there hasn't been much scientists could do to flip the switch. Now, however, researchers have created a sandwich-shaped scaffold for turning on and off nearly any catalyst at will. If developed further, the new design could allow researchers to detect minute amounts of a wide range of small molecules—from explosives such as TNT to neurotransmitters that carry messages in the nervous system. Unlike industrial catalysts, many enzymes—biological catalysts made from...

Scientists in China have developed a probe that could be used to test how well a patient will respond to certain drug treatments. The new probe measures the activity of N-acetyltransferase 2 (NAT2), an enzyme that metabolises drugs and other toxins containing aryl amines and hydrazines. The activity of NAT2 differs between individuals, which affects how well a drug will work, and dysfunction of the enzyme has been linked to breast cancer, Parkinson's and other diseases. A simple measure of NAT2 activity could help ensure patients are given drugs that they can metabolise effectively with minimal side effects. Xuhong Qian and colleagues...

I was browsing around wikipedia and came across this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraxenonogold%28II%29 It's really odd because Gold and Xenon are both notoriously unreactive. Now I don't know a lot about chemistry, but this piques my interest (on account of its extreme weirdness) and I was wondering if any of my fellows here might know about its physical properties.

Enlarge Image Hybrid. A new nanopatterning technique combines the advantages of near-field microscopy with photolithography. Credit: Mirkin Group/International Institute for Nanotechnology, Northwestern University Today's microchips, communications gear, and medical diagnostics are typically made by writing nanoscale patterns over large areas of silicon wafers and other high-tech materials. The process is either extremely expensive or painfully slow, however. Now scientists have come up with a hybrid approach that could offer researchers a way to craft prototype nanoscale devices quickly and cheaply, speeding up the already blistering pace of developments in the field. The standard computer chip–patterning technique, called photolithography, works...

A simple and fast technique to examine the surface of banknotes and identify counterfeits has been developed by scientists in Brazil and the US.The counterfeiting of banknotes is a global problem that is increasing in scale and sophistication. Counterfeiters now use computerised reproduction methods like scanners and laser printers to copy real notes, and gone are the days when a fake could be spotted by simply testing the look and feel of the paper.The new technologies used by counterfeiters have thrown out a challenge to law enforcement. 'Forensic laboratories are therefore confronted with an increasing demand to analyse larger numbers...

07 June 2010 "AQ IN NORTHERN IRAQ: SEEKING A CHEMIST OR BIOLOGIST"

It could be possible to get uranium from seawater in the future, claim US scientists who have devised a new way to extract uranyl ions from aqueous solutions. With the rapid depletion of fossil fuels, the search for alternative power sources is becoming increasingly important. One alternative is nuclear fission, making uranium - the fuel used in nuclear reactors - an important target for isolation. Although uranium is currently extracted from solid ores such as uraninite, it also exists in large quantities as uranyl ions (UO22+) in seawater. However, due to its distinctive shape that prevents the use of conventional...

Chemists in Japan have created the first material that can undergo a photoreversible transition from metal to semiconductor. The breakthrough heralds applications in ultra high density data storage, with 500 times the density of a Blu-ray disc.The past decade has seen a growing interest in ways to switch the physical properties of matter. Temperature and pressure can both turn materials, say, from insulators to metals, or from non-magnetic to magnetic, but they are difficult to control in complex memory devices. As a result, researchers have been looking at photoinduced phase transitions, for which the key stimulus is laser light. Recently, laser...

A new catalyst that generates hydrogen from sea water has been developed by scientists in the US. This new metal-oxo complex displays high catalytic activity and stability, whilst being low cost, the researchers say.Hydrogen is very attractive as a clean source of power. Currently, it is produced by natural gas reforming - where steam is reacted with methane in the presence of a nickel catalyst to form hydrogen - but this method produces the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.Jeffrey Long and colleagues from the University of California, Berkeley, prepared a simple molybdenum-oxo complex that can serve as an electrocatalyst, reducing the energy required to generate hydrogen...

Biomass-derived fuels take a step closer to solving the energy problem thanks to a new process developed by US scientists. As fossil fuel resources continue to diminish, there is a greater need for developing new approaches for producing fuels from renewable resources. Solar cells and hydrogen fuel could provide long term solutions but the most immediate option is substitution of petrol with biofuels. First-generation biofuels such as bioethanol and biodiesel have shown this is possible but they can only satisfy a small portion of the energy demands of the transportation sector and they also use edible biomass as a feedstock increasing competition...

A little square that has been left blank on the periodic table for all these years might finally be filled in. A team of American and Russian scientists have just reported the synthesis of a brand new element–element 117. Says study coauthor Dawn Shaughnessy: “For a chemist, it’s so fundamentally cool” to fill a square in that table [The New York Times]. If other scientists confirm the discovery, the still-unnamed element will take its place between elements 116 and 118, both of which have already been tracked down. A paper about element 117 will soon be published in Physical Review...

Researchers in Japan have created the first superconducting material based on a molecule of carbon and hydrogen atoms. Although the superconducting transition occurs at a chilly 18K, the simplicity of the molecule, which consists of just five benzene rings, suggests that it will open the door to other molecules that have higher transition temperatures.Superconductivity occurs when a material is cooled below a certain transition temperature (Tc) so that its electrical resistance disappears. The first superconductors were pure metals and had Tc  values close to absolute zero, but over the past 25 years scientists have begun to discover various 'high-Tc' materials, including...

/Washington DC, USAs the athletes take centre stage at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics and Paralympic Winter Games this month, chemists will be hard at work behind the scenes to catch athletes looking to win by taking drugs or blood products to artificially boost their performance during the competition.Doping is as old as the games - the ancient Greeks ate special diets and potions to enhance their athletic prowess - but over time, the practice has become considerably more sophisticated. Sports authorities began introducing drug testing in the 1970s and today, a variety of techniques exist in specialised anti-doping laboratories to catch...

Scientists in the United States have produced a simple dipstick test for detecting lead levels in paints. Easy-to-use biosensors are important for detection of highly toxic trace metal ions in the environment. Cross-linked gold nanoparticles modified with metal-specific DNAzymes have been used in solution to create highly sensitive and selective colorimetric metal sensors based on the colour change between aggregated (blue) and dispersed (red) gold nanoparticles. However, in solution the colour change can be difficult to distinguish and nanoparticle stability is poor, explains Yi Lu at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. Lu and colleagues have developed a sensor that uses...

Usually, you'd expect two compounds with the same composition, atom-to-atom connectivity and symmetry to be chemically identical too. But scientists investigating metal-organic frameworks have discovered a surprising exception to this rule by identifying two isomers with the same symmetry and bonding but different gas storage properties. A team led by Shengqian Ma at the Argonne National Laboratory, Illinois, US, investigated a rod-like tetracarboxylate molecule (ebdc) which can bind to a metal atom from any one of four binding points, one at each corner of a rectangle. When it was heated with a copper salt at 75 °C, a crystal phase formed...

What revelations caused the biggest buzz in chemistry labs around the globe during 2009? With the help of an expert panel of journal editors, Chemistry World reviews the ground-breaking research and important trends of the year's published chemical science papers. Life in 3D DNA origami, the folding of DNA into shapes on the nanoscale, moved from 2D into 3D during 2009. Hao Yan's team at Arizona State University kicked off this craze with a tetrahedron shaped 3D container made of DNA.1 A day later, Danish researchers led by Kurt Gothelf, from Aarhus University, published details of a nanosized 3D DNA...

Blue is sometimes not an easy color to make. Blue pigments of the past have often been expensive (ultramarine blue was made from the gemstone lapis lazuli, ground up), poisonous (cobalt blue is a possible carcinogen and Prussian blue, another well-known pigment, can leach cyanide) or apt to fade (many of the organic ones fall apart when exposed to acid or heat). So it was a pleasant surprise to chemists at Oregon State University when they created a new, durable and brilliantly blue pigment by accident. The researchers were trying to make compounds with novel electronic properties, mixing manganese oxide,...

Enlarge ImageBetter angle. Computer-simulated molecules crystallize faster in the more comfy 70-degree groove (left) than the cramped 45-degree wedge (right). Credit: A. J. Page and R. P. Sear, J. A. Chem. Soc., Online publication (11/13/2009) If you ever took a chemistry lab class in college, chances are you once stared desperately at a flask of liquid, crossing your fingers for tiny crystals to appear. Your lab instructor may have offered advice that sounded like voodoo: "Scratch the inside of the flask to make the crystal grow." But the trick worked--and now scientists have uncovered new details behind it. Compared...

Nov 15, 2009 — Biomimetics is the new science of imitating nature – but why not save a step, and just copy the design directly?  That’s what Aussie and British researchers did.  They wanted a self-cleaning surface that could repel moisture and dust, so they made a template of an insect wing.  And why not?  “Insects are incredible nanotechnologists,” reported Science Daily.  Their wings are self-cleaning, frictionless and super-water-repellant. Insect wings have these properties due to their properties at the scale of billionths of a meter.  “For instance, some wings are superhydrophobic, due to a clever combination of natural chemistry...

Scientists from Germany and Israel have caught a fleeting glimpse of carbonic acid, the simple yet elusive molecule that plays a key role in nature, from regulating the pH of blood to mediating crucial events in the global carbon cycle. And it appears that the acid is not as weak as the textbooks would have us believe.Carbonic acid, the hydrated form of carbon dioxide, is an important molecule that is involved in buffering biological fluids such as blood and is a key intermediate in the exchange of carbon dioxide between the atmosphere and the oceans. However, it is so short-lived in solution...

Sir Ambrose Fleming: Father of Modern Electronics --snip-- Sir John Ambrose Fleming was a leader in the electronics revolution that changed the world. As a professor at a major university, he carefully researched the evidence for Darwinism, concluding that the theory is not supported by science. He also influenced hundreds of students to evaluate the evidence in science for Darwinism. An outstanding scientist and creationist, he played a significant role in the development and maturation of the early creation movement. As Travers and Muhr wrote, he "had an unusually long and active life," and his life changed the world as...

A new molecule that detects and destroys lethal nerve gases has been developed by researchers in the US. It is hoped that the research will help develop new early-warning systems against chemical weapon attacks, and possibly give rise to an effective antidote. Originally developed during the lead up to the second world war, organophosphorus nerve gases such as sarin, tabun and soban are odourless and colourless - and exposure to even a small amount can be fatal within minutes. Despite being outlawed by chemical weapons conventions in the 1990s, their relatively straightforward chemical structure means they could conceivably be deployed by...

US scientists have confirmed the discovery of element number 114, first made over a decade ago by a team in Russia. By smashing a high energy beam of calcium-48 ions into a plutonium-242 target, the US team managed to detect two nuclei of element 114, which is predicted by some to be bordering the so-called 'island of stability' for superheavy atoms.Yuri Oganessian and his team at Dubna, Russia, were the first to claim to have created nuclei of element 114 - but any such claim has to be thoroughly verified and the experiments repeated independently before the element can be considered for admission...

Researchers have established the conditions that foster formation of potentially dangerous levels of a toxic substance in the high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) often fed to honey bees. Their study, which appears in the current issue of ACS' bi-weekly Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, could also help keep the substance out of soft drinks and dozens of other human foods that contain HFCS. The substance, hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF), forms mainly from heating fructose. In the new study, Blaise LeBlanc and Gillian Eggleston and colleagues note HFCS's ubiquitous usage as a sweetener in beverages and processed foods. Some commercial beekeepers also feed...