This week on Chemistry World
Posted by Patrick on Mon 3 Oct 2011Categories: News , This week's stories | [3] Comments
2 October 2011: Have something to say about an article you’ve read on Chemistry World this week? Leave your comments below…
Smoothing out zeolite nanosheet synthesis
A new technique overcomes a major problem with the production of zeolite nanosheets
Half of young Australian academics ready to quit
Dissatisfaction with poor job security and low pay is rife in Australian universities
Oxygen isotopes help to probe water’s structure
Quantum effects in water are revealed by substituting its oxygen with isotopes
Detecting plasticisers in drinks
A simple analytical test could prevent phthalates from entering the food chain
Using eggshells to remove toxic water pollutants
Eggshell membranes can remove toxic hexavalent chromium from contaminated water
Crystals that aren’t quite crystalline win Nobel
The 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to Dan Shechtman for his discovery of quasicrystals
One year on from Hungary’s red mud disaster
On the first anniversary of the country’s worst environmental accident the area has recovered surprisingly quickly
Turning carbon dioxide into chemicals with an amine
The reduction and functionalisation of carbon dioxide in a single step yields chemically versatile molecules
Mixed solvents exfoliate graphene analogues
Chemists in China open up more possibilities to produce single-layer inorganic nanomaterials
US firm to ‘mine’ lithium from geothermal plant brines
Simbol Materials opens pilot facility to separate lithium from geothermal power plant wastewater, targets commercial scale expansion for late 2012
Thu 6 Oct 2011 at 5:45 am
With the quasicrystal being discovered and recognised, will the properties (high strength, thin layering) be applied to movie like scenarios that we have only dreamed of so far? I have in mind the glass barrier that kept the whale contained in one of the Star Trek films? Could the quasicrystals be layered at an (atomic?) level on substances other than metal?
Signed, Probably dreaming still.
Thu 6 Oct 2011 at 8:43 am
We’re going to be checking out the Nobel prize award for quasicrystals in greater detail in the features section next week so check back then to find out more about these unusual materials and the uses they can be put to.
Thu 6 Oct 2011 at 7:35 pm
Concerning ‘Detecting plasticisers in drinks’,I seem to recall another Chinese group published on the detection of melamine in milk (a cause of infant deaths I believe) using modified gold nanoparticles…..