http://chem.vander-lingen.nl Chemistry blog : news - comments - basics in chemistry en-us 1440 http://chem.vander-lingen.nl/articles/Moerdijk requiem/id/195/itemid/634 The Chemiepack company is bankrupt, its management is still facing jailtime (earlier report here) and the official report into the Moerdijk disaster (chemical packaging/mixing company went up in flames, no one was hurt though), the publication of which Chemiepack tried to block, is finally out (PDF, Friday 10 Feb 2012 17:32:58 http://chem.vander-lingen.nl/articles/Ranking the carbenes/id/195/itemid/633 Some time ago Robert Moss found a new and convenient way to synthesise dichlorocarbene from a diazaridine. More carbenes followed prepared in a similar way and in a recent report Moss together with Zhang, Thompson and Krogh-Jespersen have pitched 6 different carbenes against 6 different alkenes in Thursday 09 Feb 2012 21:29:18 http://chem.vander-lingen.nl/articles/The mechanics of ice/id/195/itemid/632 It is freezing cold in the Netherlands making the locals nervous for the Big One. The country has plenty of surface water that all frozen up, makes a very large temporary ice skating super highway. If only all the ditches, rivers, canals and lakes the country has would freeze up nice and predictabl Monday 06 Feb 2012 17:48:29 http://chem.vander-lingen.nl/articles/The zinc-ion battery/id/195/itemid/631 In the meanwhile (see earlier blog) Xu, Li, Du and Kang have a new battery design of their own they would like to call the zinc-ion battery (DOI). They combine discharge power with high capacitance. The cathode is manganese dioxide, with zinc as anode and aqueous zinc sulfate as the electrolyte. Thursday 02 Feb 2012 21:54:06 http://chem.vander-lingen.nl/articles/The liquid metal battery/id/195/itemid/630 A magnesium-antimony Liquid Metal Battery? Sure, why not. Here is how Bradwell, Kim, Aislinn, Sirk and Sadoway made one (DOI) starting from a 90 mm hollow carbon rod. At the bottom of the cylinder is a tungsten pin as the positive current collector. The cylinder (diameter 40 mm) is lined with a laye Wednesday 01 Feb 2012 19:16:53 http://chem.vander-lingen.nl/articles/X-ray chemical enhancement/id/194/itemid/629 Neal N. Cheng of the University of California introduces a new concept he calls chemical enhancement as the increased yield of a chemical reaction due to the chemical properties of the added materials. The context is the hydroxylation of coumarin-3-carboxylic acid (3CCA) in water catalysed by gold n Friday 27 Jan 2012 18:02:03 http://chem.vander-lingen.nl/articles/Climate scientists discover common sense/id/194/itemid/628 A 22-member strong team of scientists headed by Drew Shindell (NASA) has presented a new plan for global warming mitigation in the journal Science this week (DOI). This plan specifically aims to combine the benefits of global cooling with improved health and improved food security. It does so by tar Saturday 21 Jan 2012 20:47:03 http://chem.vander-lingen.nl/articles/Novelty carbon dioxide recycling/id/194/itemid/627 The Global Warming Scare provides a bonanza for various trades and industries, chemistry one of them. Chemists all over the world busy themselves with a wide range of topics such as new battery design, solar cells, carbon sequestration and notably carbon dioxide recycling. The latest initiative or Friday 20 Jan 2012 18:29:21 http://chem.vander-lingen.nl/articles/Ohms law rescued (again)/id/194/itemid/626 Ohm's law (current proportional to voltage) was first formulated in 1827 and the discoverer George Ohm would be pleased to know that in 2012 the law still holds even at the smallest possible nanoscale. Weber et al. in their report in Science (DOI) do not explain how they would expect conductors to b Saturday 14 Jan 2012 12:12:46 http://chem.vander-lingen.nl/articles/Graphene in trouble/id/194/itemid/625 Adriano Ambrosi of the Nanyang Technological University has a sobering message for all those involved in graphene research: the graphene you are working with may be contaminated with metals and these metals may seriously affect the graphene properties you are investigating (DOI). Sounds like the Its Thursday 12 Jan 2012 21:48:01 http://chem.vander-lingen.nl/articles/The 12-step cascade/id/194/itemid/624 A large Germany-based team (Stefan Grimme of FLP fame among them) report a record 12-step cascade reaction (Dückert et al. 2011 DOI) in their quest for novel (medicinal?) indoloquinolizines. They like to call their effort biology-oriented synthesis because nature just loves cascade reactions in the Saturday 07 Jan 2012 19:55:36 http://chem.vander-lingen.nl/articles/The science universe/id/194/itemid/623 And a happy 2012 to you too. To start the new year have a look at the image on the left (click it for a blowup). With thanks to Flowingdata for the chem alert, this image (2009) is brought to you by Bollen et al. (DOI) from the Digital Library Research division (fascinating) of the Los Alamos Nation Friday 06 Jan 2012 20:32:55 http://chem.vander-lingen.nl/articles/CIP rewrite/id/193/itemid/622 The well-known CIP system perhaps needs a footnote added in order to be able to incorporate the novel molecule constructed by Hashim and Kamaoki. They report (DOI) the conversion of prochiral A - a quarternary carbon atom with a methyl, a phenyl and two azobenzene groups to chiral compound B with Monday 26 Dec 2011 17:26:56 http://chem.vander-lingen.nl/articles/Engineered serendipity/id/193/itemid/621 McNally, Prier and MacMillan are also on the trail of high-throughput organic reaction discovery in what this blog likes to call lazy chemistry (DOI). The main theme is serendipity and the quotes are fantastic: "Recently, we questioned whether serendipity could be forced or simulated to occur on a Friday 23 Dec 2011 21:14:02 http://chem.vander-lingen.nl/articles/Exit 18 electron rule/id/193/itemid/620 The 18 electron rule in chemistry is a useful tool in predicting the stability of metal complexes. For example in ferrocene the iron core provides 8 electrons and 2 cyclopentadienyl ligands add 2 x 5 making a total of 18: hence the compound is stable. Likewise in tetrakis(triphenylphosphine)palladiu Saturday 10 Dec 2011 19:02:15 http://chem.vander-lingen.nl/articles/Target: taxadiene/id/193/itemid/619 Target: (+)-taxadiene Who: Mendoza / Ishihara / Baran Publication: Nature Chemistry (DOI) Relevance: possible alternative route to Paclitaxel Strategies: Redox economy Advantages: gram-scale, few steps Disadvantages: poor diastereomeric control How: starting from achiral enone 1 Copper(I)-thi Friday 09 Dec 2011 21:48:24 http://chem.vander-lingen.nl/articles/Moerdijk redux/id/193/itemid/618 This blog has been commenting on a particular ferocious fire that consumed chemical packaging company Chemie-Pack on January 5 2011 here and here. The aftermath of this disaster (nobody was hurt though) proved just as exhilarating as the initial fireworks. The company went bankrupt but not before a Friday 09 Dec 2011 20:46:00 http://chem.vander-lingen.nl/articles/Australian chemistry vacation/id/192/itemid/617 You cannot blame a chemist for taking an interest in chemistry even when on vacation. So here is what your bloggist has to report on his recent three week stay in the Sydney - Melbourne - Hamilton triangle. Sydney's two icons are the Sydney Harbour Bridge - 50,000 tonnes of steel - and Sydney Oper Sunday 27 Nov 2011 15:40:34 http://chem.vander-lingen.nl/articles/More bad news for Martians/id/192/itemid/616 In 2008 the Phoenix Mars Lander took all the fun out of astrobiology by finding a lot of perchlorate salts in Martian soil samples. It is reasoned that perchlorate compounds are too toxic to accommodate any life form. All that is left is finding out how the perchlorate gets there in the first place: Tuesday 01 Nov 2011 20:30:11 http://chem.vander-lingen.nl/articles/The copper-platinum-bromine bullet/id/192/itemid/615 The copper-platinum-bromine bullet is a new entry in our Making-It-Move competition, see Part VI here and brought to you by Liu and Sen of The Pennsylvania State University (DOI). The bullet is a 500 micron copper nanorod with a platinum tail produced from a known alumina template material. The te Saturday 29 Oct 2011 19:00:05