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2008-08-27 22:09:34
by Will in Will and Beyond
Chemistry
The science
An experimentalist, Z.H. Li from Fudan University, and a computationalist, (is that a word?) D.G. Truhlar from University of Minnesota published a paper in JACS, "Nanosolids, Slushes, and Nanoliquids: Characterization of Nanophases in Metal Clusters and Nanoparticles". The basic idea is transferring the concept of a melting point (well, range) from the bulk scale to the nanoscale.
They did so by studying aluminum clusters, Aln, where n is 10-300. Before I get into their findings, a quote: "For convenience we call the particles with a diameter less than ~1 nm cl...more
- Truhlar D. G. (2008) Nanosolids, Slushes, and Nanoliquids: Characterization of Nanophases in Metal Clusters and Nanoparticles. , DOI: 10.1021/ja802389d
- Billon P. L. (2001) The political ecology of war: natural resources and armed conflicts. Political Geography, 20(5), 561-584. DOI: 10.1016/S0962-6298(01)00015-4
2008-08-13 13:08:50
by TotallySynthetic in TotallySynthetic
Chemistry
Trauner, Andersen, Volgraf, Lumb, Brastianos, Carr, Chung, Münzel and Mauk. Nat. Chem. Bio., 2008, ASAP. DOI: 10.1038/nchembio.107.
Starting to look like the king of biomimetic synthesis, Dirk Trauner (soon to be moving to Munich - the TUM I believe) has dropped the synthesis of another polyaromatic beast, this time into Nature ...more
- Trauner D. (2008) Biomimetic synthesis of the IDO inhibitors exiguamine A and B. Nature Chemical Biology, DOI: 10.1038/nchembio.107
2008-08-06 13:11:38
by Will in Will and Beyond
Chemistry
The Gardinier group at Marquette Univ. have developed a new pentadentate ligand alpha,alpha,alpha',alpha'-tetra(pyrazolyl)lutidine. They just published their first paper in Inorganic Chemistry about it, and it will be the first in a series. It's made by four pyridines bound to another pyridine and a couple of tertiary or quaternary carbons, resulting in the five nitrogens of the pyridines being available for binding. Their abstract image is below; I approve. It reminds me of the image which appears in my head when I think about the Scorpionates by Trofimenko.
Thi...more
- Billon P. L. (2001) The political ecology of war: natural resources and armed conflicts. Political Geography, 20(5), 561-584. DOI: 10.1016/S0962-6298(01)00015-4
2008-08-04 15:11:41
by Will in Will and Beyond
Chemistry
A little less than two weeks ago, I wrote about well-aligned CNTs, which was published in JACS.
I don't read Science too much outside of monitoring the RSS feeds, but today I came across a very similar article, Self-Sorted, Aligned Nanotube Networks for Thin-Film Transistors. The ideas behind the work are very similar. In the Science paper, the work was being done on amine/phenyl functionalized silicon surfaces, which is a little more applicable industrially, as compared with the JACS paper which was done on gold surfaces. Yes, you can just put gold plating on silicon surfaces,...more
2008-07-25 13:09:21
by Will in Will and Beyond
Chemistry
Even if you don't know much about electricity, you can probably figure out that having straighter wires connecting two things is more efficient than putting a bird's nest of wires in between your objects. The Wong group at Georgia Tech took this mentality and applied it to carbon nanotubes (CNTs).
CNTs are the future for many applications because of how small they are, yet how strong they are in both in terms of conduction and their tensor strength. One problem with creating typical solution CNT syntheses is the disorder which is created. By functionalizing them with thiols, we...more
2008-07-24 17:12:02
by Will in Will and Beyond
Chemistry
Even if you don't know much about electricity, you can probably figure out that having straighter wires connecting two things is more efficient than putting a bird's nest of wires in between your objects. The Wong group at Georgia Tech took this mentality and applied it to carbon nanotubes (CNTs).
CNTs are the future for many applications because of how small they are, yet how strong they are in both in terms of conduction and their tensor strength. One problem with creating typical solution CNT syntheses is the disorder which is created. By functionalizing them with thiols, we...more
2008-07-21 14:18:59
by Will in Will and Beyond
Chemistry
How do people get away with blatant plagiarism? Read the top introduction in the image below. Then read the second one. Seem familiar? It is the same, word for word. The first was published in Thin Solid Films in 2003 by C. D. Lokhande and his group in India at Shivaji University.
The second was plagiarized by J. J. Vittal and his group in Singapore at the National University of Singapore. The latter was published in the Journal of Materials Chemistry. The latter is definitely a better journal, but who cares? They cheated.
oh, maybe they didn't k...more
- Vittal J. (2006) La2S3 thin films from metal organic chemical vapor deposition of single-source precursor. Journal of Materials Chemistry, 16(3), 272. DOI: 10.1039/b511981b
2008-07-20 16:07:41
by Rik in NNNS chemistry blog
Chemistry
A new imatinib synthesis is presented as an alternative for the existing industrial method. But is it really an improvement and one suitable for industry? Organic Process Research & Development is a scientific journal (ACS) dedicated to industrially relevant organic synthesis which is very different from regular academic laboratory synthesis. In industry and especially in pharma, reagents have to cheap, safe to handle and non-toxic, the reaction has to be reproducible and should be scalable. Side products and waste products have to be precisely known....more
- Qi X. (2008) A Facile Total Synthesis of Imatinib Base and Its Analogues. Organic Process Research & Development, 12(3), 490-495. DOI: 10.1021/op700270n
2008-07-15 14:10:22
by Will in Will and Beyond
Chemistry
The Kamat group at Notre Dame came up with a new QD solar cell. The schematic is shown below. Basically by mixing together TiO2 or SnO2, an inorganic component of solar cells, C60, an organic component of solar cells and CdSe QDs, a good semiconductor, they succeeded.
However, it's important to note that the result of this isn't just working by adding together the effects of these, but "reflects the synergy arising from the excited interaction between CdSe and nC60." This is actually the second time this week I've heard the term synergy used in chemistry in this r...more
- Kamat P. (2008) Quantum Dot Solar Cells. Electrophoretic Deposition of CdSe−C60 Composite Films and Capture of Photogenerated Electrons with nC60 Cluster Shell. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 130(28), 8890-8891. DOI: 10.1021/ja802810c
- Billon P. L. (2001) The political ecology of war: natural resources and armed conflicts. Political Geography, 20(5), 561-584. DOI: 10.1016/S0962-6298(01)00015-4
2008-07-15 14:10:16
by Will in Will and Beyond
Chemistry
How do people get away with blatant plagiarism? Read the top introduction in the image below. Then read the second one. Seem familiar? It is the same, word for word. The first was published in Thin Solid Films in 2003 by C. D. Lokhande and his group in India at Shivaji University.
The second was plagiarized by J. J. Vittal and his group in Singapore at the National University of Singapore. The latter was published in the Journal of Materials Chemistry. The latter is definitely a better journal, but who cares? They cheated.
oh, maybe they didn't k...more
- Vittal J. (2006) La2S3 thin films from metal organic chemical vapor deposition of single-source precursor. Journal of Materials Chemistry, 16(3), 272. DOI: 10.1039/b511981b