Chemistry News

1. Breakthrough: Scientists develop artificial molecules that behave like real ones

   Scientists have developed synthetic molecules that resemble real organic molecules. A collaboration of researcher can now simulate the behavior of real molecules by using artificial molecules.

2. Water molecules define the materials around us

   A new paper argues that materials like wood, bacteria, and fungi belong to a newly identified class of matter, 'hydration solids.' The new findings emerged from ongoing research into the strange behavior of spores, dormant bacterial cells.

3. More complex than expected: Catalysis under the microscope

   Usually, catalytic reactions are analyzed by checking which chemicals go into a chemical reactor and which come out. But as it turns out, in order to properly understand and optimize catalysts, much more information is necessary. Scientists developed methods to watch catalytic reactions with micrometer resolution under the microscope -- and the process is much more complex than previously thought.

4. The problems with coal ash start smaller than anyone thought

   Burning coal doesn't only pollute the air. The resulting ash can leach toxic chemicals into the local environments where it's kept. New research shows that the toxicity of various ash stockpiles relies heavily on its nanoscale structures, which vary widely between sources. The results will help researchers predict which coal ash is most environmentally dangerous.

5. Flat fullerene fragments attractive to electrons

   Researchers have gained new insights into the unique chemical properties of spherical molecules composed entirely of carbon atoms, called fullerenes. They did it by making flat fragments of the molecules, which surprisingly retained and even enhanced some key chemical properties.

6. X-rays visualize how one of nature's strongest bonds breaks

   The use of short flashes of X-ray light brings scientists one big step closer toward developing better catalysts to transform the greenhouse gas methane into a less harmful chemical. The result reveals for the first time how carbon-hydrogen bonds of alkanes break and how the catalyst works in this reaction.

7. Thermal energy stored by land masses has increased significantly

   There are many effects of climate change. Perhaps the most broadly known is global warming, which is caused by heat building up in various parts of the Earth system, such as the atmosphere, the ocean, the cryosphere and the land. 89 percent of this excess heat is stored in the oceans, with the rest in ice and glaciers, the atmosphere and land masses (including inland water bodies). An international research team has now studied the quantity of heat stored on land, showing the distribution of land heat among the continental ground, permafrost soils, and inland water bodies. The calculations show that more than 20 times as much heat has been stored there since the 1960s, with the largest increase being in the ground.

8. You can make carbon dioxide filters with a 3D printer

   Researchers demonstrated that it's possible to make carbon dioxide capture filters using 3D printing.

9. A protein mines, sorts rare earths better than humans, paving way for green tech

   Rare earth elements, like neodymium and dysprosium, are a critical component to almost all modern technologies, from smartphones to hard drives, but they are notoriously hard to separate from the Earth's crust and from one another. Scientists have discovered a new mechanism by which bacteria can select between different rare earth elements, using the ability of a bacterial protein to bind to another unit of itself, or 'dimerize,' when it is bound to certain rare earths, but prefer to remain a single unit, or 'monomer,' when bound to others.

10. First X-ray of a single atom

    Scientists have taken the world's first X-ray SIGNAL (or SIGNATURE) of just one atom. This groundbreaking achievement could revolutionize the way scientists detect the materials.