Polymerisation of S2N2 - a new way to see hidden fingerprints

20-Oct-2010 - Fingerprints that have been washed off surfaces could now be retrieved thanks to a development by scientists in the UK and reported in the Journal of Materials Chemistry. The strained four-membered ring system, S2N2 quickly polymerises to (SN)x in the presence of fingerprints. This polymer ...

Building with pentagons

02-Jun-2009 - Achim Müller and co-workers from Bielefeld University and Marshall Luban with his co-workers from the Departments of Physics and Astronomy at both Francis Marion University and Iowa State University worked on synthesising a Keplerate using pentagonal tungsten-oxide based units and studied its ...

Mannosidase catches the boat

15-Apr-2009 - A boat conformation of the Michaelis complex of beta-mannosidase Man2A has been demonstrated by a collaboration of scientists in the UK and Canada. Gideon Davies and Wendy Offen at the University of York and colleagues from Newcastle University, worked with scientists from Queen’s University, ...

Investigating micelles, as easy as ABC

08-Apr-2009 - German scientists have used cryogenic transmission electron microscopy to investigate the fluorinated domains within ABC triblock copolymer micelles. Christoph Böttcher from Freie Universität Berlin, André Laschewsky from Universität Potsdam, and their colleagues, have shown using ...

Copper(I) interlocks rings and rods

11-Mar-2009 - Scientists in France have synthesised highly functional [4]pseudorotaxanes utilising the gathering and threading effect of copper(I). Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Jean-Paul Collin, Valérie Heitz and colleagues from the University of Strasbourg, in France, have prepared a highly functional interlocking ...

Chemistry for a Raney day

02-Dec-2008 - Spanish and Mexican scientists have stumbled across a new way to monoalkylate amines that they claim is more environmentally friendly than alternative routes. José García Ruano, at the Autonomous University of Madrid, and colleagues were using Raney nickel to cleave nitrogen–sulfur bonds in ...

Catalytic teamwork improves activity

Brønsted and Lewis acid sites can work in synergy to increase the catalytic activity of mesoporous materials, claim scientists.

26-Jun-2008 - A team led by Ulf Hanefeld at Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands, made a series mesoporous silicates containing different ratios of aluminium and zirconium metals. They found that in Brønsted acid catalysed reactions, the catalytic activity of the mixed metal silicates was higher ...

Tagging-detagging for purification of radiotracers

10-Jun-2008 - Veronique Gouverneur and colleagues from the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca, Cheshire, have developed a novel tagging-detagging strategy. This could be extremely useful for the purification of known and novel 18F-radiotracers for Positron Emission Tomography. It is the first detagging ...

Super-sensitive spray-on explosive detector

27-May-2008 - US scientists have designed a new spray-on explosive detector sensitive enough to detect just a billionth of a gram of explosive. After treatment the explosive glows blue under UV light, making it perfect for use in the field. William Trogler and his team at the University of California, San ...

Chemists measure chilli sauce hotness with nanotubes

Nanotube device gives precise spice advice

06-May-2008 - If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen and into the lab - chemists can now use carbon nanotubes to judge the heat of chilli sauces. The technology might soon be available commercially as a cheap, disposable sensor for use in the food industry. Richard Compton and his team at Oxford ...