Chemistry – Page 49 – David Bradley

Rust Never Sleeps

Rust never sleeps Dumb materials succumb to rust, but smart materials might be able to heal themselves.

Researchers in Europe have devised a novel nano coating for metals and alloys that forms a very thin gel-like layer on the material. If this coating is damaged, the metal would normally be exposed to the elements. However, the nano particles contain a preservative that instead spreads to fill any microscopic cracks and holes that appear and quickly blocks them; preventing further attack from whatever corrosive agent was eating at the metal.

The current materials can heal cracks of up to 100 micrometres in size in water and in salt solutions. “The next stage is to develop the self-healing coatings to adapt them for other metals, such as steel,” Shchukin adds, “and to provide faster release of the inhibitor from the nanoreservoirs resulting in faster healing of the defects.”

Interview from the edge

In 2005, Andrew Lemon cofounded The Edge Software Consultancy, a multidisciplinary consulting company helping pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to meet the challenges of modern drug discovery informatics. I interviewed him for the summer issue of the chemistry webzine Reactive Reports. “The complexity and diversity of experimentation during drug discovery and development only increases with time,” he told me, “Many areas are still not served with good software tools that help scientists to meet the challenges of changing dimensionality and uncertainty during the course of an experiment.” You can read the full interview, which is now live on the Reactive Reports site where you’ll find out how Lemon’s company can provide a solution for data management to make it accessible. “Learning from every piece of data collected and then applying that knowledge across the whole process is going to be the key challenge,” he added.

Read on…

Recycling Plastics Sorted

recycling plastic Plastic waste is a mess. Disposal in landfill is the worst option but recycling post-consumer plastic waste presents a technological nightmare given the huge range of polymers used in packaging and products. A rapid, online method of identifying the different plastics in a recycling stream would provide a way to sort them and allow recycling plants to operate far more efficiently and perhaps make plastic recycling commercially viable.

A technique being investigated by Spanish researchers to this end is laser-induced plasma spectroscopy (LIPS). JesÃºs Anzano, MarÃa-Esther Casanova, MarÃa-Soledad BermÃºdez, and Roberto-JesÃºs Lasheras of the Laser Analytical Spectroscopy Lab at the University of Zaragoza, in Spain, have now demonstrated that LIPS used in conjunction with a simple statistical correlation method can indeed differentiate between plastics prior to recycling.

Recycle the full story here

Molecular Photos

Hexaferrocenylbenzene structure Will Davis emailed me from France to ask if the molecular structures on the site are photos:

“I have read a book written about five years ago by a research biologist who wrote that …no one has seen a molecule. Now I see on your website photos of molecules. Are these real photos or a representation. Is this biologist either wrong or out of date?”

Well, he’s right and he’s wrong. You cannot take a photograph of a molecule. For a photograph you need light and the wavelength of visible light is just toooo long to resolve the features of a molecule. So, no, those aren’t photos of molecules you see littered around Sciencebase, I draw them using software such as ACD/Labs’ ChemSketch and then render them in Diamond, which can produce photorealistic renditions of a chemical structure. An additional step to add shadowing and make them even more 3D realistic is possible using Pov-Ray.

However, that said, molecular imaging has moved on during the last few years and it is possible to detect the presence of a molecule using the tip of something like an atomic force microscope (AFM) and to then use the perturbations of the tip to generate a three-dimensional image of the surface of said molecule.

Copper Sulfate Swimming Pool

swimming pool Belgian scientists today reiterated a warning that certain cases of asthma could be linked to swimming in stuffy “chlorinated” indoor pools but chemistry may have the answer, according to charity Allergy UK, which has awarded its ‘Seal of Approval’ to a novel alternative of which hot-tubbing ancient Greek philosopher Archimedes would be proud.

The novel solution involves using copper sulfate at levels permitted for drinking water to temper bacterial blooms in a swimming pool rather than to attempt to destroy them completely. The idea was discovered by the Greeks way back when but is used today by NASA to keep drinking water clean in space.

The product, which goes by the name Pristine Blue, is approved for use in the US, and allows the 1 in 3 kids who suffer an allergic reaction to pool “chlorine” to get in the swim without having to worry about the reaction. It also means an end to stinging eyes, which are caused by pool “chlorine” reacting with nitrogen compounds in sweat and urea that mysteriously make their way into most pools.

The copper sulfate approach also avoids damage to hair, swimming costumes, and pool liners, which normally suffer from the bleaching effects of chlorine.

Allergy UK’s Business Development Director, Jules Payne, said Pristine Blue could transform the lives of millions of families across the UK. ‘We are very excited to present this award to such a groundbreaking and innovative product,” she said, “The benefits to allergy suffers are immense, and as families prepare for their summer holidays the demand for a chlorine alternative is at its highest.”

Red Red Wine

An ideal solution for accurately and rapidly monitoring red, red wine during the fermentation process without the need for direct sampling for chemical analysis has been developed by Australian researchers led by Daniel Cozzolino of the Australian Wine Research Institute, in Adelaide.
The team recognised the need of the modern wine industry for tools that can assist in process control and quality assessment during fermentation and bottling but that can be carried out without complex sampling, preparation by an external lab. they have used chemometrics and Visible-near infrared spectroscopy to monitor concentrations of sugars and phenolic compounds, in red wine and so offer the industry a new approach to quality control.

Uncork vintage news here.

Face to face with gold nanoparticles

Bling comes to the world of nanotechnology, as japanese scientists coat crystals with gold particles. The modification of specific crystal faces of organic single crystals using gold nanoparticles could open up new possibilities for crystal engineering of materials with novel optical, electronic, and catalytic properties, according to the researchers.

Kazuki Sada, Seiji Shinkai, and colleagues of Kyushu University, in Fukuoka, Japan, have demonstrated that gold nanoparticles can be made to adhere to only certain faces of crystals of the amino acid cystine, suggesting that such “building blocks” might be used for creating sophisticated nanostructures with designer facets.

Read about the ultimate nano bling here.

Dietary stress

“Diet is an important part of healthy living,” Jeremy Nicholson of Imperial College revealed to SpectroscopyNOW, “it is just some things that are supposed to relieve stress – and widely touted by healthfood companies as being good for you – do not metabolically ameliorate the effects of even very minor experimental stress.” He and his colleagues have used NMR spectroscopy to analyse marker compounds in blood samples from rats under stress that have had their food switched to included polyunsaturated fats. “No one has actually tested this particular health claim before and this one doesnt stand up well,” Nicholson says. Additionally, the research shows it is possible to accurately measure and quantify how changing diet impacts health. This could ultimately lead to the development of more targeted and more effective products.

You can read the full details in my news round-up on spectroscopynow.com

Explosive sex, coral killers, room for shrooms and more

This week the Alchemist discovers that carbon dioxide could pose a serious threat to marine life and in particular corals and the marine ecosystems that depend on them. We also find out how publication of new rigorous research into the effects of ‘shrooms’ could represent a watershed moment in understanding hallucinogens. Solving the problem of soliton structure is set to lead to new types of actuators and fine control for artificial muscles and TEM stacks up carbon nanotubes for peak-time viewing. Finally this week, explosive sex in a tube. But, you’ll have to wait till at least 2008.

http://www.chemweb.com/alchemist-current

Multitasking drugs

An issue I have written about for the Nature drug discovery site is the re-marketing of pharmaceutical products for uses other than the original one for which a drug was developed. The latest example is the emergence of the so-called “morning after” pill RU486 as a rapid-acting antidepressant (it has already found use in treating certain cancers and psychotic depression).

RU486, mifepristone, is a steroidal hormone similar in chemical structure to progesterone. It inhibits the progesterone receptor and so is termed an ‘antiprogestin’, its effect is to induce abortion.

This week New Scientist reports on how RU486 might work as an antidepressant:

“The hormone treatment is based on earlier findings that stress plays a major part in triggering and prolonging depression. Stress hormones appear to damage a part of the brain called the hippocampus. The region is susceptible because it is particularly rich in hormone receptors, allowing it to regulate ongoing hormone release,” the magazine says.