21st century X-ray technology has allowed University of Warwick scientists to peer back through time at the production of the armor worn by the crew of Henry VIIIs favored warship, the Mary Rose.Three artefacts believed to be remains of chainmail recovered from the recovered hull have been analyzed by an international team of scientists led by the Universities of Warwick and Ghent using a state-of-the-art X-ray facility called XMaS (X-ray Materials Science) beamline.

They analyzed three brass links as part of continuing scientific investigations into the artefacts recovered during the excavation of the wreck in the Solent. These links have often been found joined to make a sheet or a chain and are most likely to be from a suit of chainmail armor. By using several X-ray techniques available via the XMaS beamline to examine the surface chemistry of the links, the team were able to peer back through time to the armors production and reveal that these links were manufactured from an alloy of 73% copper and 27% zinc.

Emeritus Professor Mark Dowsett from the University of Warwicks Department of Physics said: The results indicate that in Tudor times, brass production was fairly well controlled and techniques such as wire drawing were well developed. Brass was imported from Ardennes and also manufactured at Isleworth. I was surprised at the consistent zinc content between the wire links and the flat ones. It's quite a modern alloy composition.

The exceptionally high sensitivity analysis revealed traces of heavy metals, such as lead and gold, on the surface of the links, hinting at further history to the armor yet to be uncovered.

Professor Dowsett explains: The heavy metal traces are interesting because they don't seem to be part of the alloy but embedded in the surface. One possibility is that they were simply picked up during the production process from tools used to work lead and gold as well. Lead, mercury and cadmium, however, arrived in the Solent during WW2 from the heavy bombing of Portsmouth Dockyard. Lead and arsenic also came into the Solent from rivers like the Itchen over extended historical periods.

In a Tudor battle, there might be quite a lot of lead dust produced by the firing of munitions. Lead balls were used in scatter guns and pistols, although stone was used in canon at that time.

The Tudor warship the Mary Rose was one of the first warships that Henry VIII ordered not long after he ascended to the throne in 1509. Often considered to be his favorite, on 19 July 1545 it sank in the Solent during a battle with a French invasion fleet. The ship sank to the seabed and over time the silts covered and preserved its remains as a remarkable record of Tudor naval engineering and ship board life.

In 1982 the remaining part of the hull was raised and is now housed in the Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth alongside many thousands of the 19,000 artefacts that were also recovered, many of which were remarkably well preserved by the Eocene clays.

After recovery, the three artefacts were subjected to different cleaning and conservation treatments to prevent corrosion (distilled water, benzotriazole (BTA) solution, and cleaning followed by coating with BTA and silicone oil). This research also analyzed the surface chemistry of the brass links to assess and compare the levels of corrosion between the different techniques, finding that all had been effective at preventing corrosion since being recovered.

Professor Dowsett added: The analysis shows that basic measures to remove chlorine followed by storage at reduced temperature and humidity form an effective strategy even over 30 years.

XMaS is owned by the Universities of Liverpool and Warwick and is located in Grenoble, France, at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility. It works with over 90 active research groups, representing several hundred researchers, in diverse fields ranging across materials science, physics, chemistry, engineering and biomaterials and contributes to societal challenges including energy storage and recovery, tackling climate change, the digital economy and advances in healthcare.

It is a National Research Facility and is currently undergoing a major upgrade thanks to 7.2million funding from the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills through the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

Professor Mieke Adriaens, Head of the Electrochemistry and Surface Analysis Group at Ghent University said: XMaS is extremely versatile and flexible in the analytical strategies which can be devised and implemented. Whats more, the beamline scientists are amongst the best we've encountered anywhere. It is fascinating to examine ancient technology using specially developed analytical methods which can then be applied to modern materials too. It was also a real privilege to be allowed access to these unique artefacts and to play a part in unravelling their story.

Professor Eleanor Schofield, Head of Conservation at the Mary Rose: This study clearly shows the power of combining sophisticated techniques such as those available at a synchrotron source. We can glean information not only on the original production, but also on how it has reacted to being the marine environment and crucially, how effective the conservation strategies have been.

Co-author Professor Pam Thomas, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research at the University of Warwick, said: We are very pleased that researchers at Warwick are continuing to put our expertise in Analytical Sciences at the forefront of research on important historical artefacts. The long tradition of X-ray scattering and diffraction science within the Department of Physics at Warwick continues to give high-quality data and leads to penetrating insight across a wide range of scientific problems. It is testament both to the expertise at the XMaS beamline of ESRF and in the X-Ray Diffraction Research Technology Platform (RTP) at Warwick.ReferenceDowsett et al. (2020). Synchrotron X-ray diffraction investigation of the surface condition of artefacts from King Henry VIIIs warship the Mary Rose. Journal of Synchrotron Radiation. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1107/S1600577520001812

This article has been republished from the following materials. Note: material may have been edited for length and content. For further information, please contact the cited source.

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Chemical Analysis of Warship the Mary Rose Sheds Light on Conservation - Technology Networks

Have you ever noticed how a bite of warm cherry pie fills your mouth with sweetness, but that same slice right out of the refrigerator isn't nearly as tempting? Scientists know this phenomenon to be true, but the mechanism behind it has been poorly understood.

Now, using fruit flies as his subjects, UC Santa Barbara Distinguished Professor Craig Montell has discovered one process responsible for this occurrence. Montell's team, which includes Qiaoran Li, Nicolas DeBeaubien and Takaaki Sokabe, found that cool temperatures suppress the appeal of sweetness. However, these conditions did not affect the sugar neurons themselves. Rather, they acted via other sensory cells by way of a protein originally discovered to sense light in the eye. Despite this, the perception of coolness in sugary food is not altered by light. The results appear in the journalCurrent Biology.

"The appeal of food is influenced by more than just chemical composition," said Montell, the Duggan professor in the Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology. "We already know that cool temperatures reduce the delectability of sweetness in humans." He and his colleagues wondered whether this was also true in fruit flies, and if so, what were the underlying mechanisms?

The team found a significant difference in fruit flies' interest in feeding between 23 degrees Celsius (73.4 Fahrenheit) and 19 C (66.2 F). That said, they measured no difference in the activity of the flies' sweet-sensing taste neurons, despite the change in behavior.

"Since the temperature is not directly affecting the sugar neurons, it must be affecting some other types of cells, which then indirectly affect the propensity to consume sugar," Montell noted.

Fruit flies detect sugar with one type of taste neuron. Bitter is sensed by another type of neuron, and mechanosensory neurons detect the texture of food, such as hardness. However, temperature sensation is not quite as simple. Both bitter and mechanosensory neurons are also involved in detecting coolness. Only if both are activated does the brain interpret that as a cool signal.

All of these stimuli seem to reduce the animal's desire to feed, explained Montell. Bitter compounds trigger bitter neurons, which tell the fly to stop feeding. Hard foods trigger the mechanosensory neurons, which also tell the fly to stop feeding. And cool temperatures trigger both, to the same effect.

Critical to this response is a protein called rhodopsin 6. Rhodopsins are most commonly associated with vision, but over the past few years the Montell group has connected rhodopsins to a variety of other senses. Indeed, just a couple weeks prior, Montell's lab published the first study connecting different members of this class of protein to chemical taste.

"The bitter neurons express this rhodopsin called Rh6, and if you get rid of it, then cool temperatures no longer suppress the appeal of sugar," he said.

Without Rh6, the bitter-and-cool-detecting neurons are no longer turned on by low temperatures. And since cool-sensation requires activating multiple, different types of neurons, loss of Rh6 prevents the fly from recognizing the lower temperature, thereby eliminating the decreased attraction to sugary food.

"The surprise was finding that it was really the other neurons, not the sugar neurons, whose activity went up," Montell said, "and that the cool activation of other neurons was indirectly suppressing the sugar neurons."

The sweet-sensing neurons are still activated by sugars at low temperatures; however, the activation of these other neurons by decreased temperature suppresses the communication between the sweet-detecting neurons and the animal's brain. This is likely achieved by an inhibitory neurotransmitter released by the bitter/cool-activated neurons.

As for why fruit flies avoid food when it's chilly, Montell suspects it's due to their metabolism. Fruit flies' metabolism, and thus food requirements, are affected by temperature. Lower temperatures mean slower metabolisms, and less need for food. And generally, if the food is cold, so is the fly.

In fact, the fly generation time -- the time it takes an egg to turn into an adult fly -- doubles from 10 days to 20 when the temperature is lowered from 25 to 18 degrees Celsius. "Everything is just slowed down," Montell said, "and that's why feeding is reduced. You don't want to eat the same amount when your metabolism is slowed down." This explanation doesn't hold true for warm-blooded animals like humans, even if we show a similar behavior.

In the future, Montell and first author Qiaoran Li plan to further investigate the mechanosensory side of food appeal by looking at how particle size influences feeding behavior. As an example, he offers the distinct difference between fresh and refrozen ice cream. Despite having the same chemical composition and temperature, most people prefer ice cream that hasn't melted and refrozen into a block.

Reflecting on the surprising finding, Montell remarked, "It's great for your expectations to be wrong, as long as you can then figure out what's right."

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The appeal of food is influenced by more than just chemical composition - Jill Lopez

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Water molecules arrange themselves into boat-shaped hexamers on metal surfaces. Thats the conclusion of a theoretical study that claims to have solved a long-standing discrepancy between experimental results which seemed to show flat hexamers and theoretical predictions of a chair conformation.

Water is weird. Its unusual properties have led some researchers to think of it as two different liquids instead of one homogenous material. In 2002, chemists discovered that thin water layers form regular hexamers on hydrophobic metals like copper at low temperatures. In scanning tunnelling microscope (STM) images, these structures looked flat. But several teams theoretical calculations later showed a chair-like adsorption configuration to be more stable than a flat hexamer.

A team of scientists in China and Sweden now thinks that it has solved the water puzzle, showing that a boat-shaped hexamer not only matches the experimental result but is in fact lower in energy than the chair conformation.

The team simulated STM images through ab initio molecular dynamics. Only for the boat configuration did they show the same elongated, C2 symmetric hexagon seen in experiments. Further calculations confirmed that the boat configuration is an electronic global energy minimum, meaning it is more stable than either the chair or the flat hexamer.

A better understanding of how water interacts with surfaces could help researchers design materials whose properties change in the presence of water.

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Water's boat shape resolves disagreement between theory and experiment - Chemistry World

Dennis G. Peters, 82, a beloved chemistry professor at Indiana University, died on April 13 from complications related to COVID-19. He was just days away from celebrating his 83rd birthday. Peters contracted COVID-19 while he was hospitalized for an injury that occurred during spring break. Peters was Herman T. Briscoe Professor of Chemistry at Indiana Universities, and was teaching until his injury occurred.

William F. Carroll Jr., an adjunct professor at Indiana University and a past president of the American Chemical Society, says he was heartbroken to hear the news of Peterss passing. Peters was Carroll's research adviser in graduate school.

What do you say about a man who taught intro chemistry for 57 years, essentially 113 consecutive semesters and more than 15,000 students, Carroll says. What do you say about a guy who wrote or co-wrote 5 textbooks that were successful in selling well over 140,000 copies who then used most of the money from the sales of the books to fund things in the laboratory? If we needed a piece of equipment and we didnt have a grant for it, Dennis would reach into his own pocket.

Carroll says Peters instilled in him a sense of independence and perseverance. Dennis Peters let me fail, and I needed that, Carroll says of his graduate school experience. But he always encouraged me to try again.

Peters earned a BS in chemistry from California Institute of Technology in 1958 and a PhD in analytical chemistry from Harvard University in 1962. He joined the Indiana University faculty in 1962. He was an ACS member for 63 years.

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Covid-19 claims the life of beloved chemistry professor - Chemical & Engineering News

Even though most tours are postponed or canceled right now due to coronavirus, it doesnt mean we cant get excited about whats to come. One of those things that may still come to be is the Used touring with My Chemical Romance, at least according to the Used bassist Jeph Howard.

If thats not enough good news, the Used also dropped their new album Heartworktoday (April 24) so pop that on and check this out.

The Useds vocalist Bert McCracken has been casually mentioning a tour with My Chemical Romance for months. It started at a couple of their intimate live shows, then in a radio interview.

Next, the Used canceled their European tour and their appearance at Slam Dunk Fest. They said an opportunity arose that they couldnt pass up. This just furthered the idea that they were touring with My Chemical Romance.

McCracken appeared onThe Green Room with Neil Griffithspodcast and was asked about a My Chemical Romance tour. McCracken replied that hes been saying theyre on the tour because they should be.

Furthermore, on an episode of Shane ToldsLead Singer Syndromepodcast, McCracken said that he was mainly joking on stage about the tour but would love to join MCR if the opportunity arose.

I think we made a big deal about the relationship from the beginning, McCracken says. Ive been friends with Gerard [Way] since the band broke up.[] I saw him at a Frank Iero show about four years ago and thats when we reconnected. I do like to tell jokes from stage but I texted him and was like Dude, I hope you guys know that these are all just jokes to make us smile, but we would all be honored to tour with you.

Well now, the Useds bassist Jeph Howard appeared on the Colombian radio station Radioacktiva and seemed to promote the hype a little more regarding the tour.

At one point during his appearance, Howard begins to talk about My Chemical Romance. He starts with their touring history as he leads up to playing their cover of Under Pressure.

But, at the tail end, Howard says something quite noteworthy.

[Im] really glad these guys [MCR] are back together and touring again, Howard says. And definitely, at some point, you are going to see us on tour together.

You can listen to the moment Howard spoke about My Chemical Romance in the post below, and check out Radioacktiva here.

[BIG NEWS ]Today Jeph from The Used was invited to a radio station in Colombia to talk and play music, he said that possibly they will tour again with MCR, I recorded it for you from MyChemicalRomance

If you havent checked it out yet, stream the Useds brand new album Heartworkbelow.

Do you think that the Used and My Chemical Romance will tour together? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below!

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Is this more evidence of the Used touring with My Chemical Romance? - Alternative Press

Chemistry professor Dennis Peters poses for a headshot. Peters died Monday.CORRECTION: A previous version of this caption misstated the day of Peters death. The IDS regrets this error. Courtesy Photo

Despite his small stature, Dennis Peters had a roaring voice that filled lecture halls. He leapt up from chairs in the graduate chemistry advising office and wowed children and adults alike with flashes of colors and bright fires during Magic of Chemistry programs, clad in a colorful lab coat decorated with chemical illustrations, mathematical formulas and equations.

Peters, an IU chemistry professor, died Monday after contracting COVID-19 while being hospitalized for an injury that occurred during spring break. He was 82 and died a few days shy of his birthday, according to the IU Chemistry Departments obituary.

He was born in 1937 in Eagle Rock, California, and graduated from California Institute of Technology with a bachelor's of science and got his doctorate at Harvard University. He has been teaching since 1962, according to the obituary. Peters won a number of local and national awards, such as the Herman T. Briscoe Professorship and Chemical Manufacturers Association National Catalyst Award.

Friends and colleagues alike said though he never had kids, his family was the graduate students he advised and colleagues he adored.

IU graduate student Amir Hosseini hasnt seen his family in five years. Hosseini said Peters, his graduate adviser, helped fill that void and became like his family in the United States.

You dont need to be family by blood to love someone, he said.

Hosseini said his biggest regret is that he cant tell Peters how much he meant to him.

I wish I couldve told him how much he meant to me, as a supervisor, as a family member, he said.

Chemistry graduate program coordinator Dalane Anderson said Peters would frequently organize Wine Wednesdays with the graduate students and invite office staff, where everyone would nurse a glass of wine while talking about their personal lives. She said Peters made the office come alive, joking about trips to Hawaii and his love of chemistry.

He has the sweetest spirit about himself, Anderson said.

Michael Samide, one of Peters past graduate students and a professor at Butler University, said he credits Peters for his teaching style and said the way he engages with students is shaped by his former adviser. He recalled Peters would never criticize students if they needed help doing research and would help undergraduate and graduate students alike. He would take students out to dinner to celebrate milestones in their careers and frequently had them over to his house for meals.

The experiments Peters would put on for different schools to entice children with science were always impressive and chaotic, Samide said. He said a fan favorite was color-changing chemical solutions which would change color to the tune of the Lone Ranger theme song. Another involved creating a fire that spread across the lab table Peters worked at, eliciting gasps from the audience.

Ana CoutoPetro, one of Peters graduate students at IU, said he made her more confident in her work. English isnt her native language, so she delivered drafts of papers and presentations in installments. She said he truly enjoyed helping her.

His caring for others, both personally and professionally, was something special, CoutoPetro said. The world is missing someone this week.

Peters would always crack jokes with his students and help them prepare to defend their research in front of the panel, CoutoPetro said. If students needed assistance, his office was always open, and he would drop whatever he was doing to listen.

Lee Klein, another graduate student who worked under Peters and completed his doctorate in 2001, said he remembers the professors craftsmanship with words. Peters would tear papers and drafts apart, rebuilding them and making the writing better. However, he never made students feel small and always invested time into them, Klein said.

A common way Peters would check in with students was through IU sports. He frequently took students to football and basketball games, cheering on the home team and bonding with his graduate pupils.

He was up out of his chair and shouting wildly and cheering them on, Klein said. He turned into a different person. He really got into it.

Ben Gerroll, part of Peters graduate advising group, said the professor was like a father to him. He said the worst thing one of his students could hear was that Peters was disappointed in them and Peters had the perfect balance of hands-off management, yet nurturing and encouraging of all research ideas or topics.

Theres a void in the world now that Im not sure can be filled, he said

Many of Peters' current and former students and colleagues agreed he would be someone the world couldnt replace.

A light as bright as his doesnt shine without lighting others around him, Gerroll said. Theres just so many sides to this magnificent man. We could talk for days, and we wouldnt be able to encompass a small amount of who he is and what he was."

Peters is survived by his nephew Ruben Portugues, who lives in Germany, and by his niece Iliana Portugues who lives in the United Kingdom.

Like what you're reading? Support independent, award-winning college journalism on this site. Donate here.

Students who expose themselves on Zoom calls risk suspension or expulsion.

The move-out period was extended to comply with stay-at-home order.

He has been self-quarantining since his wife tested positive for the virus April 9.

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'There's a void in the world': Students, staff remember IU professor Dennis Peters - Indiana Daily Student

FAIRFIELD A team of game designers is looking to overcome a challenge posed by the limited computing ability of laptops given to secondary school students.

Robert McCloud, the director of the Game Design and Development program at Sacred Heart University, said he is leading a team of students and alumni from SHU and Becker College creating education video games that can run on a Chromebook.

Most of the games (people) are playing just wont work on a Chromebook because its web-based, McCloud said. Chromebooks are the most common computer given to middle and high school students.

McCloud said the group is currently designing two educational video games. The first involves learning about chemistry while going through adventures and avoiding dinosaurs. The second guides a player flying a spaceship named the Cosmic Egg through the human body on a quest to find and understand stardust.

McCloud said the program is run through an East Hartford startup called The Beamer LLC, a business founded by physicist Peter Solomon. The students involved are being paid a wage equal to what they could expect at an independent video game development company, McCloud said.

He had raised over a million dollars through a National Science Foundation Grant, private investors and, more recently, Paycheck Protection Program funding to keep our workers employed, he said.

According to McCloud, seven Sacred Heart students or alumni and four students from Becker College are working on the project. Using Discord, a communication platform geared toward gamers, the team meets weekly to work on code and discuss ideas.

Since it is still in the early stages of development, McCloud said, the team puts the game on Itch, an indie game platform, every week to let a limited number of people test it out.

The chemical composition game we want to have ready for (wider) testing on July 15, he said. Were kind of crunching on that. We want to have the other game done by the end of the summer, so theyll have published games on CVs.

Stephen Clarke, who received an undergraduate computer science degree from Sacred Heart this year, said he has been working for Beamer for three years. He describes himself as a technical artist, a bridge between the full-blown artists on the team and the games programmers.

I make sure that all of the art assets that we bring into the game are ready and designed so that they wont impact performance, Clarke said. Theres a lot that goes into optimization of images and 3D models.

Clarke said trying to make sure the games will run on Chromebooks means ensuring they will run basically on anything. He said that means putting a lot of time into compressing file sizes so they will load on the laptops without any problems with frame rate or download speed.

So far, Clarke said, download speed has been the main roadblock. According to Clarke, the reason download speed is a concern is not because the schools are using Chromebooks, but because the average school has a slow internet download speed.

Were trying to trying to limit the amount of textures were using, Clarke said, explaining one cutback was limiting the variation in trees in the game, just using the same tree over and over again.

Were going to have to use something like one or two music tracks for the entire game, just so we can keep that download speed to a minimum, he said.

Clarke said he enjoys being a creator, and finds it fulfilling to create games where people can have fun and learn in the process. He said finding the intersection of those two attributes has been an entertaining challenge.

Eric Boehringer, a rising senior at Sacred Heart majoring in computer science, said McCloud asked him to join the team after this past semester because McCloud said he thought Boehringer was a descriptive writer.

We have a very programmer-heavy team, so I have been more focused on level design and story creation, Boehringer said, adding that the stories for the games are based off of a book written by Solomon.

As he tries to acclimate himself with the team, their process and the software they use, Boehringer said, not being able to meet with them in person has been a challenge.

It can be hard to be really definitive on anything, going forward, when everyone might have different ideas, he said. Some of my stuff might get changed around a bit, but Im okay with it generally.

Based on feedback from teachers, Boehringer said the team is trying to find a way to allow for lesson plans to be built around the games. With most of his experience coming from personal projects, he said, the educational aspect is a new challenge.

Its focusing even more on the user experience, the interaction between the teachers and the students as well as trying to incorporate what we have from the source material, he said. Its a lot of push and pull.

Its a very interesting experience, Boeringer said. I have to incorporate what I know about designing a well-rounded game and making it fun. But how do I make the player, the students, learn while enjoying (that process)? Its probably one of the biggest challenges we face.

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From SHU to Chromebooks: dinosaurs, chemistry and a game of stardust - CT Insider

With the rapid spread of the Covid-19 coronavirus, people have been stocking up on groceries, toilet paper and surgical face masks.The resulting shortage of face masks, in particular, has caused the government to step in, promising toissue tworeusable cloth masksto every household starting this week.

If you cant get your hands on any masks in the stores,there are plenty of DIY alternatives, including masks made of paper towels and handkerchiefs. But you might be wondering just how effective a homemade mask really is. Well,Dr Tomoaki Okuda, a chemistry professor at Keio University, has recently shared an experiment he conducted on three different types of masks totesttheir efficiency at filtering out particles in the air, including virus.

In the video, Dr Okuda blows air through three types of masks: a regular surgical face mask, apaper towel mask and a cloth handkerchief, and measures the number of particles that pass through each mask. Dr Okuda's experiment had some pretty surprising results:

Overall, the test resultsshow that while no mask can completely filter out all the particles in the air, they are still useful. Those made from fabric or even paper towels might be a handy alternative to the disposable ones that are currently so hard to find.

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Japanese chemistry professor tested three types of face masks for their efficacy - Time Out

Global warming is the biggest challenge we have ever faced.

Since the first industrial revolution, the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) a powerful greenhouse gas in the atmosphere has increased by almost 50%, which is causing a steep rise in globaltemperature. Controlling its increase and keeping temperature risebelow 1.5 degrees is necessary to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change. However, that likely requires stopping new emissions immediately and reducing the excess CO2 that is already in the atmosphere.

Scientists are developing technologies that can literally suck CO2 from the air with huge fans. This technique, called direct air capture (DAC), uses either adsorption where CO2 sticks to a surface or chemical reactions which capture and use CO2 to create something else.

DAC is implemented in pilot plants by several companies in Europe and North America, and on an industrial scale bya Swiss company calledClimeworks.Theyplan to suck one percent of the global CO2 emission in 2025. For this task, they will need to install around 750,000 DAC units.

After removing CO2 from the air, DAC plants have to get rid of it. One way to do that is to pump it underground, where it essentially turns into rock. They can also sell the CO2 for use ingreenhouses (CO2 is a potent fertilizer) and carbonated drinks, or fuel, polymers, and concrete.

Coming up with new ways to use commercialize extracted CO2, once it's sucked out of the air, can inspire new technology that reduces atmospheric CO2.

Recently, scientists from the University of Southern California have developed a simple method to turn CO2 into methanol. The conversion happens without complicated purification or separation steps.

Gas combusting in a flare

Pixabay

In a more traditional method, the separation of the captured CO2 requires temperatures higher than 700C.In this novel technique, potassium hydroxide, a base, captures CO2 and forms a compound called potassium formate. At this point, adding hydrogen should, theoretically, produce methanol. However, it turned out to be not that easy. This step represented the main challenge that the researchers had to face. As they write, in baldly scientific style, "further hydrogenation [addition of hydrogen] of the formate...was found to be ineffective."

Going back to the literature, they tried a new approach, which they hoped would lead to producing methanol but through a different route. They dunked the whole reaction in alcohol, addeda catalyst to speed it up, and increased the temperature, obtaining the total conversion of CO2 to methanol in 20 hours.

Simple "one-pot" conversion of carbon dioxide (CO2) into methanol (CH3OH)

Rosaria Cercola

This method still requires some adjustments.The reaction is cyclical you end up with the same material in the pot, plus the methanol, at the end of the reaction as you had in the beginning. Different components wander off and turn into other chemicals, but are regenerated at the end in the same proportion they were in at the beginning. But the base does gets consumed.If the researchers can overcome this issue, this technique can be easily scaled up and added to existing plants.

But, there's more.For it to be energetically efficient, the production of hydrogenmust be derived fromsplitting waterwithrenewable sources of energy (such as from solar power). This method is not widely available yet, but it is being testedin a series ofHYDROSOL projects.

Right now, most of the hydrogen used in the chemical industry comes from fossil fuels. The steam reformingmethod cheap and common butenergetically demanding heats up methane gas and water at very high temperature (700-1100 C) to produce carbon monoxide and hydrogen. With these plants popping up more and more, we could see large-scale sustainable CO2 to methanol conversion in a few years.

But then what will do we do with all of that methanol?

We can either use itas it is, as fuel or antifreeze, or as a reactant to produce more chemicals.The first case is understandably not the solution to our CO2 problem: as a fuel, methanol burns and produces new CO2 that goes back into the atmosphere. This process, described as it is, is a carbon-neutral process, and not carbon-negative as we need.Subtracting CO2 from the atmosphere is not enough if global emissions do not decrease.

On the other end, methanol can be used to produce solvents, resins, low weight polymers, long-lasting materials that don't liberate CO2 immediately.However, for it to be carbon negative, it is necessary to consider the balance between the stored carbon and the oneproduced during the synthesis of these materials.

More investments in this kind of research are necessary to reduce the production of CO2 altogether. This topic is delicate and involves scientists, policymakers, andthe choices consumersmake along the way: The cars we buy (or rather don't), the flights we take (or rather don't), the electricity source we choose for our own houses. But by and large, the people thatwe elect to lead us in these decisions.

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CO2 sucked out of the atmosphere can be reused for new chemical processes - Massive Science

Before the NBA hit the pause button on the season in mid-March, the Philadelphia 76ers were the league's most inconsistent team. No other franchise had a bigger disparity between how well it played at home vs. on the road. The Sixers were a league-best 29-2 inside the friendly confines of the Wells Fargo Center, but owned a dismal 10-24 record in away games.

At home, they secured impressive wins over the Los Angeles Lakers, Los Angeles Clippers and Milwaukee Bucks. On the road, however, the 76ers suffered embarrassing losses to the likes of the lowly Atlanta Hawks and Washington Wizards. At 39-26, Philly currently sits in the sixth spot in the Eastern Conference standings -- behind the Bucks, Raptors, Celtics, Heat, and Pacers -- after many expected them to compete for the top seed prior to the season's start.

Many of the Sixers' issues with inconsistency were due to injuries, as they were without three different starters -- Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons, and Josh Richardson -- for extended periods of time. However, some of the team's struggles were due to chemistry, or a lack thereof, according to forward Tobias Harris. During a recent appearance on ESPN's "First Take" Harris admitted that the Sixers struggled with cohesion throughout the season, and acknowledged that they failed to live up to the lofty expectations bestowed upon them.

"I'll just say, and I'll keep it real, we haven't had the best chemistry throughout the whole year," Harris said, via NBC Sports Philadelphia. "It took us a while to kind of get everyone together, we battled injuries from the start to the end. And right now, if we're the sleeper, then we're the sleeper. Truth be told, how we're viewed, that's someone else's opinion, but I know when I look my guys in the eye and we have conversations, we have one goal in mind, and that's to go out there and play and win a championship.

"That's the only view that matters to me. What people have to say about our team, I get it, because we haven't met our expectations so far this year. But we have a new opportunity in Orlando to go out and just play ball, and really scratch a new surface of what we can accomplish."

Despite their up-and-down season, Harris remains confident that the Sixers are capable of capturing the title when the season resumes in Orlando at the end of July.

"I've always been in contact with all of my teammates throughout this process," Harris said. "Mainly just to make sure guys are in a good space mentally, asking, 'Hey, do you want to go hoop out here? What's your opinion?' Not really holding much judgement to it. I believe that when we go out here and go hoop, we have a chance to win a championship. We're going to be healthy, a lot healthier than before -- having Ben recovered and fully healed is big for us -- and we've just gotta go out there and play basketball.

"This for us is kind of like an AAU tournament. We've just gotta go out there and hoop, play our best and do what we do. But I really believe that we're going to have a clear-cut shot to win a championship, and I stand on that."

Considering the injury issues that they dealt with, and the fact that 40 percent of the starting lineup was new, some struggles were to be expected for the Sixers. However, given the talent on the team -- and the payroll -- it's fair to say that they underperformed during the first portion of the season. In Orlando, though, they will get a fresh start and a new opportunity to prove themselves. Over the course of the season, the Sixers showed their ceiling with some major wins -- like over the Bucks on Christmas Day, or their 17-point victory over the Lakers in January -- and that ceiling is extremely high.

On any given night, the Sixers can compete with -- and defeat -- any team in the league. Consistency will be key for them in Orlando. If they can string solid performances together consistently they could potentially go on a deep run. Thanks to the win-or-go-home nature of the postseason, perhaps as a unit the Sixers will gain a singular focus that may have been missing during some road losses in December and January. Head coach Brett Brown and general manager Elton Brand have said repeatedly that the Sixers, as currently constructed, were built for postseason play. In Orlando, we'll find out if that's true.

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Tobias Harris admits 76ers had chemistry issues this season, now 'have a new opportunity in Orlando' - CBS Sports

LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The chlorobenzene market is expected to grow by USD 767.36 million during 2020-2024. The report also provides the market impact and new opportunities created due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We expect the impact to be significant in the first quarter but gradually lessen in subsequent quarters with a limited impact on the full-year economic growth.

Request challenges and opportunities influenced by COVID-19 pandemic - Request a free sample report of the chlorobenzene market

Chlorobenzene and its by-products are some of the most consumed materials in the chemical industry. They are used as intermediates in the production of various chemical-based products such as dyes, pigments, herbicides, and pesticides. Chlorobenzene is also used as a solvent in the manufacture of paints, adhesives, oil cleaners, waxes, and polishes. Furthermore, PPS, a semi-crystalline polymer manufactured by chlorobenzene, is widely used in the textile industry for coatings and fabrics owing to its high resistance to temperature, thermal shock, and chemicals. Many such applications are increasing the consumption of chlorobenzene in the chemical industry, which is driving the growth of the market.

To learn more about the global trends impacting the future of market research, download a free sample: https://www.technavio.com/talk-to-us?report=IRTNTR43475

As per Technavio, the high consumption of chlorobenzene in APAC will have a positive impact on the market and contribute to its growth significantly over the forecast period. This research report also analyzes other significant trends and market drivers that will influence market growth over 2020-2024.

Chlorobenzene Market: High Consumption of Chlorobenzene in APAC

The market is witnessing an increase in the demand for chlorobenzene from emerging economies such as China, India, and Japan. This can be attributed to the abundant availability of raw materials and the strong presence of established market players in these countries. Besides, the shifting of chemical industries from developed countries such as the US to China and India has significantly increased the consumption of chlorobenzene in APAC. Also, the strong growth of cotton and textile industries in China and India is increasing the demand for dyes, pigments, and fabric solvents. In addition, the increasing demand for personal care products, chemicals, and pharmaceuticals in APAC is significantly contributing to the overall growth of the global chlorobenzene market.

Increasing demand for agrochemical intermediates and the rising population in India and China will further boost market growth during the forecast period, says a senior analyst at Technavio.

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Chlorobenzene Market: Segmentation Analysis

This market research report segments the chlorobenzene market by type (monochlorobenzene, p-dichlorobenzene, o-dichlorobenzene, and others) and geography (APAC, North America, Europe, South America, and MEA).

The APAC region led the chlorobenzene market in 2019, followed by North America, Europe, South America, and MEA respectively. During the forecast period, the APAC region is expected to register the highest incremental growth due to the high consumption of p-dichlorobenzene.

Technavios sample reports are free of charge and contain multiple sections of the report, such as the market size and forecast, drivers, challenges, trends, and more. Request a free sample report

Some of the key topics covered in the report include:

Market Drivers

Market Challenges

Market Trends

Vendor Landscape

About Technavio

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focus on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions.

With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavios report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavios comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

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Chlorobenzene Market 2020-2024 | Increased Demand for Chlorobenzene from the Chemical Industry to Boost Market Growth | Technavio - Business Wire

Iron is the most stable and heaviest chemical element produced by nucleosynthesis in stars, making it the most abundant heavy element in the universe and in the interiors of Earth and other rocky planets.

To get a better understanding of the high-pressure behavior of iron, a Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) physicist and international collaborators discovered the subnanosecond phase transitions in laser-shocked iron. The research appears in the June 5, 2020, edition of the journal Science Advances.

The research could help scientists better understand the physics, chemistry, and the magnetic properties of Earth and other planets by measuring time-resolved high-resolution X-ray diffractions for the entire duration of shock compression. This allows observation of the timing of the onset of elastic compression at 250 picoseconds and the inferred observation of three-wave structures between 300-600 picoseconds. The X-ray diffraction reveals that the famous phase transformation from ambient iron (Fe) to high pressure Fe occurs within 50 picoseconds.

At ambient conditions, metallic iron is stable as a body-centered cubic form, but as pressures rise above 13 gigapascals (130,000 times the atmospheric pressure on Earth), iron transforms to a nonmagnetic hexagonal close-packed structure. This transformation is diffusionless, and scientists can see the coexistence of both the ambient and high-pressure phases.

There are still debates about the locations of the phase boundaries of iron as well as the kinetics of this phase transition.

The team used a combination of an optical laser pump and X-ray Free Electron Laser (XFEL) probe to observe the atomic structural evolution of shock-compressed iron at an unprecedented time resolution, about 50 picoseconds under high pressure. The technique showed all of irons known structure types.

Team members even discovered the appearance of new phases after 650 picoseconds with densities similar or even lower than that of the ambient phase.

This is the first direct and complete observation of shock wave propagation associated with the crystal structural changes recorded by high-quality time series data, said LLNL physicist Hyunchae Cynn, a co-author of the paper.

The team observed three-wave temporal evolution by the elastic, plastic and the deformational phase transition to the high pressure phase, followed by post compression phases due to rarefaction waves in 50-picosecond intervals between 0 and 2.5 nanoseconds after irradiation with the optical laser.

Further experiments may lead to a better understanding of how rocky planets were formed or whether they have a magma ocean in the interior.

Other contributors include: Yonsei University, Republic of Korea; SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory; Pohang Accelerator Laboratory, Republic of Korea; Korea Polar Research Institute; Center for High Pressure Science and Technology Advanced Research, Shanghai; Arizona State University; University of South Carolina; and Osaka University.

Continue reading here:
Experimenting With Iron Under Pressure to Better Understand the Physics, Chemistry, and Magnetic Properties of Earth - SciTechDaily

A sign on the campus of the University of Alaska Anchorage. (Photo by Tegan Hanlon/Alaska Public Media)

The states public university system is eliminating dozens of degree and certificate programs from theater to chemistry to creative writing to close a budget gap driven by cuts to state funding and declining enrollment, and exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.

The University of Alaska Board of Regents on Friday approved cutting about 40 programs and reducing or merging several others. Its part of an effort by the UA administration to scale-down the university system as revenue sources shrink.

Regent Karen Perdue said its the largest number of program reductions at UA in recent memory, and reflects the tough financial times the university system is in.

The choices are difficult, Perdue said in a statement. Hard questions have been asked and refinements have been made.

The academic cuts stem from a months-long review process. Students, faculty and community members have pushed to save some of the programs arguing they have healthy enrollments and are unique to UA. Perdue said UA had to make difficult choices.

The program cuts will impact 30 faculty and staff. Also, almost 700 students are enrolled in the programs, according to UA. UA says those students will be able to complete their degree or certificate. Thats a requirement from accreditors.

Faculty say many more students take classes from the programs.

The programs eliminated include:

Read the full list of programs cut, merged and reduced here.

UA says the cuts will save about $4 million.

Regents also agreed on Friday to several other ways to cut spending including restructuring debt, suspending pay increases and furloughs. UA regents tasked administrators to further study a controversial proposal to merge UAS programs into the Fairbanks and Anchorage universities. The proposal has drawn widespread criticism.

Read the rest here:
Theater, chemistry, sociology among dozens of academic programs cut at the University of Alaska system - KTOO

An enzyme shifts rapidly between at least four different 3D shapes as it catalyses a chemical reaction, researchers have discovered. Observing this enzymatic metamorphosis was made possible by trapping individual molecules inside nanopores in an electric field. The approach could aid understanding of how enzymes work, which could help create more powerful ones or even for engineering artificial enzymes.

After the first enzyme crystal structures were solved in the 1960s, scientists realised that enzymes fold into a three-dimensional shape, forming an active site for substrates to fit into and catalyse a reaction.. However, growing evidence suggests that some enzymes shift between multiple ground-state shapes, or conformers, during a reaction.

Understanding such changes and their hierarchies could help optimise enzyme performance in applications. This requires studying them at the single molecule level but existing methods to achieve this including fluorescent labelling are limited, often because enzymes conformational changes are too small to be detected.

Now, Giovanni Maglias group at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands, has overcome this by putting an individual globular enzyme, dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR), inside a nanopore. Measuring modulations of ionic current through the pore has revealed that the enzyme folds into four different 3D structures.

The conformers show different affinities for substrates and products, and they exchange when the reaction crosses the transition state, explains Maglia. We propose that this mechanism is important to increase the efficiency of product release, which is the rate limiting step in the catalysed reaction. This observation suggests therefore that enzymatic reactions are more complex than previously expected.

Nanopores are tiny openings spanning an insulating membrane in this case the nanopore is a protein and the membrane is a lipid bilayer. Although ionic currents through nanopores have been used for over a decade to study how ligands bind to proteins at the single molecule level, this is the first time that individual steps in an enzymatic reaction have been observed inside a pore.

The researchers engineered DHFR a frequently studied model enzyme with a polylysine tag to trap it inside a modified cytolysin A pore under an electric field. When a negative potential is applied, DHFR enters the nanopore and the tag sticks to the pores negatively charged interior.

The electric potential on the membrane generates an ionic current across the pore. When folate and the co-factor nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH) are added, their binding to DHFR alters the flow of ions, revealing the enzymes different conformations while reducing the substrate to tetrahydrofolate.

We did not expect to observe multiple conformers of the enzyme, says Maglia. We were also surprised to discover that ionic currents through nanopores are so sensitive to tiny differences in the structure of proteins.

While the approach itself is an impressive experimental feat, the most remarkable finding is the suggestion that substrate binding and turnover can lower energy barriers to conformational exchange in enzymes, says supramolecular chemist Scott Cockroft at the University of Edinburgh, UK. Understanding the principles governing such dynamics might be exploited for re-engineering known enzymes or even for developing artificial enzymes.

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Trapped enzyme reveals its unexpected shape-shifting ability - Chemistry World

LUBBOCK, Texas One local professor is using Frozen characters along with singing and dancing to engage her students in organic chemistry.

Amanda Boston, PhD, an Associate Professor of Chemistry at Lubbock Christian University, said since her school started doing online classes, she had to develop new ways to engage her students.

Boston said she had done videos for her classes before but the videos she has created for her students during the pandemic involved a little more work. In fact, she said she spent forty hours editing just one video.

Ive worked with some editing software but it was never to this extent, she said. So I had an idea of what editing software could do but I wasnt well versed in it and so with some of the effects.

She said that the number of hours spent learning how to edit was worth it so her students could learn.

Something that I want to instill in my students about chemistry is that, its not boring, its fun, she said. Whether thats making a full of myself in some silly lab video or just how excited i see that i am in the classroom about what we are learning.

Student Abbey Langford said said the videos helped her engage in ways other labs havent and that she will remember them for years to come.

The online labs have given us an opportunity to watch her creative spirit flow and and see her sense of humor and get to interact with her that way, said student Abbey Langford

Student Hannah Curtis said the lab isnt her best class but that the videos have brought humor and light to the subject.

It is just really neat to have professors that care so much about us that they take so much time and effort and put all that into a 30 min lab video for the week, said Curtis.

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Local professor uses Olaf from Frozen to teach organic chemistry - KLBK | KAMC | EverythingLubbock.com

CRANBURY, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Cannabis Science and Technology, a multimedia platform that focuses on educating the legal cannabis industry about the science and technology of analytical testing, quality control, extraction, and cultivation is proud to announce a partnership with the American Chemical Societys (ACS) Cannabis Chemistry Subdivision (CANN).

The partnership will kick-off with the Spring 2020 CANN Virtual Symposium that will take place May 67 featuring several sessions that CANN had planned for the ACS Spring 2020 National Meeting & Expo scheduled for March 22-26, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which was cancelled due to the COVID-19 global pandemic.

We are honored to be able to partner with CANN and the ACS during this uncertain time to help transition their National Meeting & Expo into an innovative virtual symposium, said Mike Hennessy Jr., president and CEO of MJH Life Sciences, the parent company of Cannabis Science and Technology. As our partnership grows, we look forward to working together with them to further their mission and educating the cannabis community.

Throughout the two-day virtual symposium, cannabis scientists, researchers, and industry experts will deliver more than a dozen talks from on a wide array of topics. A special highlight of the virtual symposium will also include presentations from all the 2020 ElShohly Award winners:

Cannabis Science and Technology (CST) stands as a leading publisher in the field of cannabis science, providing a platform for the dissemination of valuable information to the scientific and cannabis community at large, said Julia Bramante, chair of CANN and lead scientist for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. CANN greatly looks forward to its partnership with CST to continue to drive these initiatives of information sharing.

Cannabis Science and Technology is also excited to be CANNs publishing partner for the ACS Fall 2020 National Meeting & Expo taking place August 1620 in San Francisco, California. The magazine will help CANN create and publish a programming booklet for attendees, available both in person and digitally.

For more information and to register for the free virtual symposium, click here.

About Cannabis Science and TechnologyCannabis Science and Technology is a multimedia platform that focuses on educating the legal cannabis industry about the science and technology of analytical testing, quality control, extraction, and cultivation. The magazine is accompanied by an online component and provides relevant information and tutorials for all members of the cannabis industry. Cannabis Science and Technology is a brand of MJH Life Sciences, the largest privately held, independent, full-service medical media company in North America dedicated to delivering trusted health care news across multiple channels.

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Cannabis Science and Technology Announces Partnership with the American Chemical Society's (ACS) Cannabis Chemistry Subdivision (CANN) - Business Wire

Jimmie Monsoor (front, wheelchair) and other veterans and guardians tour the USS Missouri. Steve Ranson / LVN

World War II veteran Jimmie Monsoor reads letters sent to him by area students. Monsoor and other veterans attended a reception at the Honolulu Elks Club. Steve Ranson / LVN

World War II William Curry, left, and Jimmie Monsoor were part of an Honor Flight Nevada trip to Hawaii. Steve Ranson / LVN

John Konvicka pushes Jimmie Monsoor past saluting sailors at the dining facility at Pearl Harbor Hickam Joint Base. Mon navy lunch

mon pearl harbor handshake

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Editors note World War II and Korean War veterans visited Pearl Harbor earlier this year as part of Honor Flight Nevadas first trip to Hawaii. The end of World War II in both Europe and the Pacific occurred 75 years ago.

The surprise attack on Pearl Harbor early on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, prompted a call for volunteers to enlist in the military and fight for their country.

One such young man was Jimmie Monsoor, a La Crosse, Wisc., native who now lives in Reno, but his age at the time prevented him from serving.

When Pearl Harbor was bombed, everybody was ready to join, he said. I was too young. Later on, I wanted to join the Marines, but my mother wouldnt sign. She said I was too young.

Monsoor was 15 years old when the United States declared war on Japan. As the years slowly pressed on, Monsoor waited before he could join the military, but instead of volunteering at a younger age like he wanted, he received a draft notice when he was 18 years old. Within two weeks, he left for basic training. Monsoor entered the Army Air Force and spent 1945-1946 in a crucial position.

Praise the Lord, so to speak, he said. I was very fortunate to get in at the end of the war.

As a chemical technician, he was in charge of a bombs dump chemical storage on Guam, a small island in the Marianas that was recaptured by American forces in 1944.

One of my jobs was to protect those bombs, and if they had a leak, Id go in and decontaminate it, he said.

Monsoor said it was dangerous work by tending to an arsenal of mustard, napalm and chemical bombs. Each projectile was filled with liquefied noxious gas that was released when the bomb exploded. If a leak developed, Monsoor said a crew donned their decontamination equipment and fixed the leak.

To this day, Monsoor also remembers Guams hot, humid weather, and the jungle and other vegetation that covered half the island.

There were lots of insects, Monsoor said. We were fortunate the island was sprayed every two weeks.

Monsoor attended basic training Sheppard Field and Wichita Falls, Texas, and completed his advanced training for chemical technician Buckley Field, Colo. After World War II ended, Monsoor, who was a corporal, slipped into the inactive reserves, but with the breakout of war on the Korean peninsula, he was recalled. Monsoor, who spent total of 12 years in the military, remained stateside.

When World War II ended, though, Monsoor settled in California rather than returning home to Wisconsin. He attended a junior college and then California State University Sacramento where he majored in chemistry and minored in math, yet he felt his purpose in life was unfilled.

I didnt like being a chemist, he said. I applied to a pharmaceutical company in sales and management, and spent 40 years in pharmaceuticals.

Monsoor also had another trick up his sleeve, that of a magician. He opened a magic store to promote his hobby and was a magician who belonged to different organizations.

After he retired, he and his late wife, Marilyn, had planned to stay in California, but they decided to move in Reno in 2001 where housing costs were more reasonable, and the area wasnt as crowded.

Since he can remember, Monsoor has respect for those who don the uniform to serve their country. He and Marilyn flew to Washington, D.C. in 2012 on the first Honor Flight Nevada to see the nations memorials built in honor of the nations fighting men and women. Marilyn, a registered nurse, served in Vietnam on aerovac (aeromedical evacuation) missions, and also in Japan and England before retiring as a lieutenant colonel. She died in 2017.

The trip to Pearl Harbor earlier this year comes as many nations remember the 75th anniversary of World War IIs end. Monsoor had been to Pearl Harbor before as a young soldier and then with Marilyn after they married, but he said it was nice to be reminded of the price of freedom.

The five days on Oahu in February rekindled those cherished memories for the 93-year-old Monsoor.

I think of my wife, he said when they saw some of the memorials at Pearl Harbor. I wish she was here to see them again.

Not only does Monsoor reflect on his current journey to Pearl Harbor but also the need for younger generations to learn about the second world war in their classes.

I dont want people to forget, he said. I want them to remember.

Originally posted here:
Veteran waited to join the war effort: Chemical technician's age kept him from fighting until 1945 - Nevada Appeal

Ingenious fluorescence microscopy experiments have revealed palladium atoms liberated behaviour, helping answer unresolved questions about an important process for forming bonds between carbon atoms. The SuzukiMiyaura cross-coupling won Akira Suzuki a Nobel prize in chemistry in 2010, but there has been debate about whether solid palladium catalysts are dissolving or not.

Tito Scaianos team at the University of Ottawa found that palladium atoms dissolve and leach away from other atoms in nanoparticles, but then land back on the surface of their supporting material. These redeposited palladium atoms are active sites for the carboncarbon bond formation process, explains Paolo Costa, first author on the new paper.

Industrially, the SuzukiMiyaura reaction is frequently used for the synthesis of essential drugs, says Costa. Industry finds it easier to isolate and reuse solid catalysts than work with soluble versions. But this raises the question of whether the carboncarbon bond formation reaction happens on the catalyst surface, or whether the catalyst dissolves and potentially leaches away. Finding the correct answer is important since leaching processes often result in unwanted traces of toxic metal in drugs, raising the operating costs for purification and catalyst recovery, Costa says.

At first Scaiano, Costa and their colleague Deborah Sandrin used non-microscopy methods to distinguish whether solid or dissolved palladium was the active catalyst. Some of their results suggested mechanisms occurring at the palladium nanoparticle surface, while others indicated a leaching process.

Scaianos group then used total internal reflectance fluorescence (Tirf) microscopy to directly study the atoms at work. In this process they shine specific wavelengths of laser light across a region 100200nm above a microscope slide that contains mixtures including fluorescent dyes. The microscope detects the resulting fluorescence in high resolution, potentially down to around 20nm pixel sizes and captures events occurring on timescales of 100ms. Thats enough to capture important details about catalyst behaviour.

To study the SuzukiMiyaura reaction, the Ottawa team designed a novel chemical system. They started with a molecule that fluoresces green, which has two bromine atoms that enable it to participate in carboncarbon bond formation reactions. Adding 2-thienylboronic acid can make a monosubstituted molecule, and then a disubstituted one, which fluoresces red. Using Tirf the chemists tracked when they saw the products form, and where.

At first the team saw fluorescence bursts at the same place as the palladium nanoparticles. They therefore thought carboncarbon bond formation was only happening at the palladium nanoparticle surface. But a peer reviewer who assessed their paper prior to publication suggested that atoms could be leaching and readsorbing.

The chemists rose to this challenge. They placed an area of catalyst comprising palladium nanoparticles distributed on titanium dioxide support material side-by-side with an area of titanium dioxide containing no catalyst. They then let reagents flow from the catalyst side of the slide to the pure titanium dioxide side. To their surprise, they soon started to see fluorescence bursts originating on the pure side. Tirf microscopy demonstrated that the catalytic sites, atoms or small clusters of palladium, are active once they land back on the titanium dioxide support, highlighting the heterogeneous, yet mobile, nature of the catalytic system investigated, Costa underlines.

Vivek Polshettiwar, from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) in Mumbai, India, says that leached palladium atoms becoming active sites after attachment back to catalyst supports is indeed an exciting finding. Most heterogeneous catalysts for Suzuki coupling use amine or thiol functionalised supports before loading palladium, adds Polshettiwar. This generally significantly reduces leaching, he notes. It will be interesting to know if these systems also follow the same mechanism.

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Palladium catalyst voyage prompts carboncarbon bond formation rethink - Chemistry World

Early this April, PharmaBlock Sciences (Nanjing), Inc. announced the launch of a new Chemistry and Engineering Technology Center (CETC) located next to its GMP manufacturing site in Shangyu, Zhejiang Province. Addition of the CETC will further strengthen PharmaBlocks chemistry and engineering technology platform while enabling greener, safer and more efficient process chemistry and manufacturing capabilities.

The new technology center covers an area of 32,300 ft2, with an investment of 8 million USD. Featuring state of the art assets and experienced chemists and engineers, the CETC is committed to delivering innovative solutions with a focus on flow chemistry, micropacked bed reaction, biocatalysis, and an array of engineering technologies, including but not limited to separation, crystallization, and application of DCS and process simulation.

Today, increased pressure for green, safe and sustainable supply chain management within the pharmaceutical industry has given rise to innovative chemistry and engineering technologies. We consider innovative technologies a fundamental part and cornerstone of PharmaBlocks current and future success, and as a key component of our overall innovation strategy, the CETC will definitely consolidate our competitiveness. Said Dr. Minmin Yang, Founder & Chairman of PharmaBlock.

Among these new technologies PharmaBlock has implemented, application of micropacked bed in flow hydrogenation is in the spotlight. Such a niche problem-solving technology, which has been increasingly adopted in the industry, is not only applied in lab scale, but also in pilot and manufacturing scale at PharmaBlock, with a daily output of 100Kg to 1000Kg.

Micropacked beds have been successfully applied to the development and manufacturing of several dozens of our projects. We have seen many superiorities micropacked bed creates over conventional methods: lower safety risk, lower wastes, cost and space saving, consistent quality, and robust process with simple control. Added by Dr. Yuanping Jie, Head of CETC, In addition to the existing 5L and 10L micropacked bed reactors designed by our in-house engineering team, the CETC will add more scale-up equipment, expand the application into more reaction types, like oxidation, and enhance the automated mode to further ensure safety and high efficiency.

PharmaBlock customers will benefit from the addition of the CETC in many ways. Most notably, sitting next to the Zhejiang GMP site, the CETC will support more innovative solutions to help overcome scale up challenges in customers projects, resulting in shortened lead times and reduced overall costs. The CETC also takes responsibility to optimize the scale up process of PharmaBlocks building blocks, which could be broadly used in many clinical and market drugs manufacturing.

[Contact]

Celine Chen

Marketing Director

chen_chen@pharmablock.com

View original post here:
PharmaBlock Opens New Chemistry and Engineering Technology Center in Zhejiang Highlighting the Application of Micropacked Bed Technology in Continuous...

MBCs Monday-Tuesday drama 365: Repeat the Year has released new behind-the-scenes stills of the actors hard at work!

365: Repeat the Yeartells the story of a mystery survival game in which people go one year back in time to make their lives perfect, but find themselves trapped in an even more mysterious course of events. The drama is receiving a lot of attention for its thrilling plot and unexpected twists.

It is not an exaggeration to say that the driving force behind the dramais theactors passionate performances and positive energy. In fact, the viewers are witnesses to their wonderful teamwork and bright spirits. The new stills capture the actors genuine comradeship, friendly atmosphere of the drama set, and the actors passion regardless of time and place.

The mood between when the camera is on versus when its off is completely different. The drama showcases a meticulous psychological warfare between the characters with Kim Ji Soo and Yang Dong Geun playing the antagonists, whereas theset off-camera is full of warm smiles, and the cast and crewinteract in an amiable atmosphere.

On top of that, the stillsshowcase the actorsdoing their best and putting on a passionate performance. Lee Joon Hyuk and Nam Ji Hyun review their scripts and rehearse until shooting begins, while Kim Ji Soo and Yang Dong Geun show amazing concentration. The actors discuss their lines together and also pose for photos every now and then.

The next episodes of 365: Repeat the Year will air on April 20 at 8:55 p.m. KST.

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Nam Ji Hyun, Lee Joon Hyuk, And More Have Brilliant Chemistry On The Set Of 365: Repeat The Year - soompi