The Alchemist Newsletter: Feb 29, 2012

ChemWeb members now have access to selected full text articles from Chemistry publishers such as Wiley, Elsevier and Springer. Members can download a selection of articles covering a broad range of topics direct from the pages of some of the most respected journals in chemistry. Explore some of the latest research or highly cited articles. Not yet a ChemWeb member? Membership is free and registration takes just a minute.

View free select full text articles

back to top

back to top

A working transistor based on a single phosphorus atom precisely placed in a silicon crystal is not only an incredible feat of engineering, but could represent another step towards the building blocks of a so-called quantum computer. According to a team at the University of New South Wales, Australia, the tiny transistor uses as an individual phosphorus atom patterned between atomic-scale electrodes and electrostatic control gates as its active component. The electronic characteristics of the device match theoretical predictions made by Gerhard Klimeck’s group at Purdue University in the US.

Single-atom transistor is "perfect"

back to top

A fluorescent gel added to filter paper could make a quick and easy detector for the explosive trinitrotoluene, TNT, according to a team led by Ayyappanpillai Ajayaghosh of the National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science and Technology in Trivandrum, India. The approach which uses OPVPF, a perfluoroarene based gelator known to form arene-perfluoroarene, could be a less costly alternative to ion mobility spectroscopy detection or sniffer dogs in certain security-conscious settings.

Simple sensitive TNT detection

back to top

Gold nanoparticles can be used to strip mercury ions from contaminated water in a twenty-first century process that resembles the centuries-old method for extracting gold from its ore. Victor Puntes at the Catalan Institute of Nanotechnology in Barcelona, Spain, and colleagues recalled that recalled that gold miners exploit mercury-gold amalgams to extract the precious metal from its ore and leave behind mercury salts. The team has now reversed this process to pull the mercury from samples of contaminated water. The team used 9-nanometer gold nanoparticles coated with sodium citrate. The coating not only allows the nanoparticles to disperse in solution, but the citrate reduces any dissolved mercury to elemental mercury, which is much more readily separated from the water.

Gold Cleans Up Mercury

back to top

Astronomers have found that the chemical composition of superficially "Earth-like" planets outside our solar system may be very different in bulk composition to the Earth. The team based at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, in the Canary Islands, suggests that the discovery may have dramatic consequences for finding extraterrestrial worlds that have environments akin to those on Earth that might theoretically support life. Theoretical studies show that the ratios of C:O and Mg:Si are the most critical elemental ratios in the determination of an Earth-like planet's mineralogy. The new work shows that the elemental abundances in proto-planet forming stars can vary wildly from that seen in the Earth.

Chemical Clues on the Formation of Planetary Systems: Earth siblings can be different!

back to top

Phosphorus is something of a chemical chameleon changing color to suit its environment with white, red, black and purple structural forms. Arsenic, on the other hand, just one below P in the Periodic Table is less colorful with well-known gray and yellow forms. A black form of arsenic has never been proven. Now, Tom Nilges at the Technical University of Munich and colleagues have combined quantum chemical computations with experimental investigations of phase formation and suggest that metastable black arsenic could very well exist in a pure form based on its energetics. The work could lead to a better understanding of metastable elements and the development of novel compounds.

Black Arsenic: Fact or Fiction?

back to top

Genzo Shimadzu, Sr. and Genzo Shimadzu, Jr. have been selected as this year's recipients of the 2012 Pittcon Heritage Award. The Pittsburgh Conference on Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy (Pittcon) and the Chemical Heritage Foundation (CHF) will be bestow the award posthumously on the founders of Shimadzu Corporation at Pittcon 2012 on March 11 in Orlando, Florida. Japan’s modernization in the second half of the nineteenth century was enabled by the vision of people like Genzo Shimadzu who recognized that the growing interest in Western science and technology could lead to new opportunities in Japan and kick start a whole new industry.

Genzo Shimadzu, Sr. and Genzo Shimadzu, Jr. receive PITTCON 2012 Heritage Award Honoring

back to top