May 14, 2008, 8:58 PM CT

Held together by metal-metal bonds

Chinese scientists have recently made a "golden crown" with a diameter of only a few nanometers. It is a large ring-shaped molecule containing 36 gold atoms. The lords of the ring, a team of scientists from the Universities of Beijing, Hong Kong, and Nanjing report their unusual compound in the journal Angewandte Chemie: the molecular ring structure is held together exclusively by gold-gold bonds and is thus the largest ring system made of gold atoms produced to date.

Large molecular rings have fascinated chemists for over 40 years-ever since the discovery of crown ethers in 1967. The pioneers in this area, C. J. Pederson, J.-M. Lehn, and D. J. Cram received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their discovery in 1987. In the meantime, large molecular ring systems have played an important role in the search for new functional materials and in nanotechnology. The synthesis of ring systems held together exclusively by metal-metal bonds has remained a challenge.

Small rings made of positively charged gold atoms have been know for some time, but only recently could the Chinese team make a ring containing 16 gold atoms. Now, the researchers, led by Shu-Yan Yu, Yi-Zhi Li, and Vivian Wing-Wah Yam, have introduced a new representative of this class of compounds, the biggest gold ring to date that is held together by means of gold-gold bonds: a ring system containing 36 univalent gold atoms......... Posted by: Sarah      Read more         Source

May 12, 2008, 8:28 PM CT

How Proteins Dissolve and Crystallize

In the late 19th century the Czech scientist Franz Hofmeister found that some salts (ionic compounds) aided the solution of proteins in egg white, some caused the proteins to destabilize and precipitate, and others ranged in activity between these poles.

Hofmeister proceeded to rank "salt-out" (destabilizing) ions versus "salt-in" ions as per the magnitude of their effects. The resulting "Hofmeister series" governs the strengths of ions in inducing protein unfolding, bubble coalescence, and a number of other phenomena, and remains vital to protein chemistry and other biological and chemical studies to this day. But its mechanism has never been properly understood.

A team led by Richard Saykally of the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has now used Berkeley Lab's Advanced Light Source to study how biologically important, positively charged ions (cations) interact with negatively charged groups found in proteins (anions) to form salts. The team's results, which appear in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, lend strong experimental support to a critical part of a proposed new explanation for Hofmeister effects, known as the Law of Matching Water Affinities.

The Law of Matching Water Affinities

"The Law of Matching Water Affinities, recently proposed by Kim Collins, says that the least soluble ion pairs are formed by ions that are closest to each other in their hydration energy - that is, how strongly they hold onto water," says Saykally, who is a faculty scientist in Berkeley Lab's Chemical Sciences Division and a professor of chemistry at the University of California at Berkeley. "This is a classic example of an ion-specific effect: Hofmeister effects depend on the identity of ions rather than just on their concentration."........ Posted by: Sarah      Read more         Source

May 11, 2008, 9:14 AM CT

Designer Isotopes Push the Frontier of Science

Designer labels have a lot of cachet, a principle that's equally true in fashion and physics.

The future of nuclear physics is in designer isotopes--the relatively new power researchers have to make specific rare isotopes to solve scientific problems and open doors to new technologies, as per Bradley Sherrill, a University distinguished professor of physics and associate director for research at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL) at Michigan State University (MSU).

"We have developed a remarkable capability over the last 10 or so years that allows us to build a specific isotope to use in research," Sherrill said. "It is a new tool that promises to allow whole new directions in research to move forward. There are tremendous advances that are possible".

Sherrill outlined some of the possibilities and what it will take to get there in a perspective piece in the May 9 edition of Science magazine.

In that article, he writes nanotechnology is getting a lot of attention for the astonishing possibilities of constructing objects with individual atoms and molecules. Sherrill, however, said that nanotechnology hardly is the last word in small.

The chemical changes that brought about the formation of the elements in the bellies of stars are being recreated in laboratories such as MSU's NSCL. Advances in basic nuclear science already have given way to technologies such as PET (short for positron emission tomography) scans, which are medical procedures that use special isotopes to target specific types of tumors......... Posted by: Sarah      Read more         Source

April 8, 2008, 9:54 PM CT

14-year-old CEO makes chemistry a game

Age seems to be no obstacle when it comes to starting a business. Thats the case with 14-year-old Anshul Samar, CEO of Alchemist Empire, Inc., who invented a trading card game, Elementeo, that aims to teach chemistry to students in a fun, unusual way.

At the 235th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in New Orleans, Samar will present his inventive card game. While other 14-year olds play on their Xbox, this precocious CEO hopes to secure $500,000 in funding so his Silicon Valley-based startup can begin mass producing the game.

I have always wanted to show the world that the youth can start a business and have fun at the same time, says Samar.

Like other popular trading card games, Elementeo casts two players against each other in card-based fantasy combat. But unlike Pokemon or Magic: the Gathering, Samar says that Elementeo educates just as much as it entertains.

The game is based on a 121-card deck of chemical elements, compounds and catalysts. Every card has an explanation of the element or compounds uses and chemical properties. For example, the Oxygen card can rust neighboring metal cards and the Copper Conductor card can shock any metals. The oxidation state of an element is used as its attack power, and its physical state determines its movement on the board. The goal of the game is to reduce the opponents electrons to zero through strategic use of each cards chemical properties......... Posted by: Sarah      Read more         Source

April 6, 2008, 8:29 PM CT

Gunshot residue analysis on a single gunpowder particle

Researchers in Texas are reporting development of an highly dependable, rapid, and inexpensive new method for identifying the presence of gunshot residue (GSR). The test fills a GSR-detection gap that results from wider use of green lead free ammunition.

It requires only a single speck of GSR smaller than the period at the end of this sentence and could boost the accuracy of one of the most widely used tests employed at crime scenes involving gunplay.

In a poster presented here today at the 235th national meeting of the American Chemical Society, graduate student Garrett Lee Burleson and his advisor, chemist Jorn Chi Chung Yu, Ph.D., of Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, described their new method. It extracts almost all components of gunpowder residue from particles about 15 times smaller than the width of a human hair, without the use of chemical reagents. After extraction, gas chromatography coupled with a nitrogen phosphorus detector is used to separate and identify the analytes.

Gunshot residue tests are done in almost every case where a shooting has taken place, Burleson said. The main focus of our research is to develop a method that will help credibility of gunshot residue evidence in court. You can get results with this test in 30 to 40 minutes with the new test. In addition you only need small amounts of evidence to run the test......... Posted by: Sarah      Read more         Source

April 1, 2008, 9:56 PM CT

Solving Mystery Of Polyketide Drug Formation

A number of top-selling drugs used to treat cancer and lower cholesterol are made from organic compounds called polyketides, which are found in nature but historically difficult for chemists to alter and reproduce in large quantities.

For the first time, researchers at UC Irvine have discovered how polyketides form their ringlike shape, making it easier for chemists to manipulate them into new drugs.

The key, they found, is an enzyme called aromatase/cyclase, which forms a C-shape mold in which polyketides can form one molecule at a time. By changing this mold, chemists can control the size and shape of the polyketide, resulting in the formation of new drugs.

"Almost every polyketide has rings in its chemical structure, and if we can control ring formation, we can produce more polyketide drugs," said Sheryl Tsai, lead author of this study and an assistant professor of molecular biology and biochemistry and chemistry at UCI. "Until now, polyketide ring formation was a mystery that hampered our efforts to produce new drugs".

The research appears online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Polyketide-based drugs and products account for more than $35 billion in sales annually. They include antibiotics that can cure a bacteria infection (tetracycline and erythromycin); anti-cancer drugs used in chemotherapy (doxorubicin and mithramycin); anti-oxidants that help prevent cancer and promote heart strength (EGCG and resverastrol); and drugs that lower cholesterol levels (Zocor). Green tea and red wine also contain beneficial polyketides......... Posted by: Sarah      Read more         Source

March 26, 2008, 10:10 PM CT

New Organic Molecule in Space

The « Large Molecule Heimat » is a very dense, hot gas clump within the star forming region Sagittarius B2. In this source of only 0,3 light-year diameter, which is heated by a deeply embedded newly formed star, most of the interstellar molecules known to date have been found, including the most complex ones such as ethyl alcohol, formaldehyde, formic acid, acetic acid, glycol aldehyde (a basic sugar), and ethylene glycol.

Starting from 1965, more than 140 molecular species have been detected in space, in interstellar clouds as well as in circumstellar envelopes. A large fraction of these molecules is organic or carbon-based. A lot of attention is given to the quest for so-called "bio"-molecules, particularly interstellar amino acids. Amino acids, the building blocks of proteins and therefore key ingredients for the origin of life, have been found in meteorites on Earth, but still not in interstellar space.

The simplest amino acid, glycine (NH2CH2COOH), has long been searched for in the interstellar medium but has so far not been unambiguously detected. Since the search for glycine has turned out to be extremely difficult, a chemically related molecule was searched for, amino acetonitrile (NH2CH2CN), probably a direct precursor of glycine.

The researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Radioastronomy in Bonn selected the "Large Molecule Heimat", as the source has been named by experts, and investigated a dense forest of 3700 spectral lines from complex molecules with the IRAM 30-metre telescope in Spain. Atoms and molecules emit light at very specific frequencies, which appear as characteristic lines in the radiation spectrum. By analyzing these spectral lines, astronomers can determine the chemical composition of cosmic clouds. The more complex a molecule is, the more possibilities it has to radiate its internal energy. This is the reason why complex molecules emit a number of spectral lines, which are very weak and therefore difficult to identify in the "line jungle"......... Posted by: Sarah      Read more         Source

March 5, 2008, 7:43 PM CT

Steal CO2 From Air

Los Alamos National Laboratory has developed a low-risk, transformational concept, called Green Freedom-, for large-scale production of carbon-neutral, sulfur-free fuels and organic chemicals from air and water.

Currently, the principal market for the Green Freedom production concept is fuel for vehicles and aircraft.

At the heart of the technology is a new process for extracting carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and making it available for fuel production using a new form of electrochemical separation. By integrating this electrochemical process with existing technology, scientists have developed a new, practical approach to producing fuels and organic chemicals that permits continued use of existing industrial and transportation infrastructure. Fuel production is driven by carbon-neutral power.

"Our concept enhances U.S. energy and material security by reducing dependence on imported oil. Initial system and economic analyses indicate that the prices of Green Freedom commodities would be either comparable to the current market or competitive with those of other carbon-neutral, alternative technologies currently being considered," said F. Jeffrey Martin of the Laboratory's Decisions Applications Division, principal investigator on the project.

Martin will be presenting a talk on the subject at the Alternative Energy NOW conference in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, February 20, 2008......... Posted by: Kevin      Read more         Source

February 25, 2008, 9:25 PM CT

Tracking your carbon footprint

An innovation called Carbon Hero may help reduce global warming by making people more aware of their carbon footprint. Regional prize winner in the 2007 European Satellite Navigation Competition, sponsored by ESA's Technology Transfer Programme, the device uses satellite navigation technology to track journeys.

Concerned about global warming, a number of people are now looking for ways to reduce their generation of carbon dioxide (CO2). One option is to use public transport and limit journeys by car and plane; however, eventhough this can significantly reduce each person's carbon footprint, until now the benefits have been difficult to measure.

"With Carbon Hero calculating your carbon footprint is easy," explains Andreas Zachariah, a graduate student from the Royal College of Art in London and inventor of Carbon Hero. "This easy-to-use mobile system uses satellite navigation data to calculate the environmental impact of travel. With its specialist database and algorithm, it can determine the mode of transport and its environmental impact with almost no user input."

It was back in 2006, that Andreas Zachariah came up with the idea of a small and practical device to track personal CO2 emissions during travel. It determines the carbon footprint of travellers using different modes of transport by using satellite navigation data to measure the distance, identify the type of transportation and calculate the amount of CO2 released into the atmosphere through travel......... Posted by: Kevin      Read more         Source

February 12, 2008, 9:17 PM CT

MIT reveals superconducting surprise

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--MIT physicists have taken a step toward understanding the puzzling nature of high-temperature superconductors, materials that conduct electricity with no resistance at temperatures well above absolute zero.

If superconductors could be made to work at temperatures as high as room temperature, they could have potentially limitless applications. But first, researchers need to learn much more about how such materials work.

Using a new method, the MIT team made a surprising discovery that may overturn theories about the state of matter in which superconducting materials exist just before they start to superconduct. The findings are published in the recent issue of Nature Physics.

Understanding high-temperature superconductors is one of the biggest challenges in physics today, as per Eric Hudson, MIT assistant professor of physics and senior author of the paper.

Most superconductors only superconduct at temperatures near absolute zero, but about 20 years ago, it was discovered that some ceramics can superconduct at higher temperatures (but commonly still below 100 Kelvin, or -173 Celsius).

Such high-temperature superconductors are now beginning to be used for a number of applications, including cell-phone base stations and a demo magnetic-levitation train. But their potential applications could be much broader......... Posted by: Sarah      Read more         Source

January 29, 2008, 9:47 PM CT

Lithium and Beryllium No Longer "Lack Chemistry"

Even though the lightest known metals in the universe, lithium (Li) and beryllium (Be), do not bind to one another under normal atmospheric or ambient pressure, an interdisciplinary team of Cornell researchers predicts in the Jan. 24 issue of Nature that Li and Be will bond under higher levels of pressure and form stable Li-Be alloys that may be capable of superconductivity. Superconductivity is the flow of electricity with zero resistance.

The Inorganic, Bioinorganic and Organometallic Chemistry program at the National Science Foundation (NSF) supported the research because little work had been done to predict the properties of metals under high pressure.

"We observed that chemists working on inorganic compounds and inorganic reactions under high pressure were interested in the predictions and felt it would stimulate useful interactions between theorists and experimentalists," said NSF Program Manager Michael Clarke.

Of the four stable Li-Be alloys predicted by the scientists' computational study, the alloy with the ratio of one Li atom to one Be atom (LiBe) shows the greatest potential for superconducting applications.

A most unexpected finding in the study is the predicted existence of two-dimensional electron gas layers within a tightly compressed three-dimensional LiBe compound......... Posted by: Sarah      Read more         Source

January 29, 2008, 9:43 PM CT

Magnetism loses under pressure

Washington, D.C. Researchers have discovered that the magnetic strength of magnetitethe most abundant magnetic mineral on Earthdeclines drastically when put under pressure. Scientists from the Carnegie Institutions Geophysical Laboratory, together with colleagues at the Advanced Photon Source of Argonne National Laboratory, have observed that when magnetite is subjected to pressures between 120,000 and 160,000 times atmospheric pressure its magnetic strength declines by half. They discovered that the change is due to what is called electron spin pairing.

Magnetism comes from unpaired electrons in magnetic materials. The strength of a magnet is a result of the spin of unpaired electrons and how the spins of different electrons are aligned with one another. This research showed that the drop in magnetism was due to a decrease in the number of unpaired electrons.

Magnetite is found in small quantities in certain bacteria, in brains of some birds and insects, and even in humans, commented Yang Ding, the studys lead author with the Carnegie-led High-Pressure Synergetic Consortium. Early navigators used it to find the magnetic North Pole and birds use it for their navigation. And now it is used in nanotechnology. There is intense scientific interest in its properties. Understanding the behavior of magnetite is difficult because the strong interaction among its electrons complicates its electronic structure and magnetic properties......... Posted by: Sarah      Read more         Source

January 24, 2008, 11:00 PM CT

When accounting for the global nitrogen budget, don't forget fish

Like bank accounts, the nutrient cycles that influence the natural world are regulated by inputs and outputs. If a routine withdrawal is overlooked, balance sheets become inaccurate. Over time, overlooked deductions can undermine our ability to understand and manage ecological systems.

Recent research by the Universite de Montreal (Canada) and the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies (Millbrook, New York) has revealed an important, but seldom accounted for, withdrawal in the global nitrogen cycle: commercial fisheries. Results, published as the cover story in the recent issue of Nature Geoscience, highlight the role that fisheries play in removing nitrogen from coastal oceans.

Nitrogen is essential to plant and animal life; however, it is possible to have too much of a good thing. During the past century, a range of human activities have increased nitrogen inputs to coastal waters. Fertilizer run-off is the best documented and most significant source of terrestrial nitrogen pollution. Nitrogen-rich fertilizer applied to farmland eventually makes its way into coastal waters via a network of streams and rivers.

Research spearheaded by Roxane Maranger (Universite de Montreal) and Nina Caraco (Cary Institute) demonstrates that commercial fisheries play an important but declining role in removing terrestrial nitrogen from coastal waters. Accounting for this withdrawal is crucial; terrestrial-derived nitrogen can stimulate coastal phytoplankton growth, leading to eutrophication. Typically typically eutrophic waters are characterized by reduced dissolved oxygen, decreased biodiversity, and species composition shifts......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

January 14, 2008, 4:25 PM CT

From the Journal of Biological Chemistry

COX-2 inhibitors like Celecoxib have come under scrutiny lately due to adverse cardiovascular side-effects stemming from COX-2 reduction. In both fruit fly and rat models, scientists reveal another adverse effect of Celecoxib; this drug can induce arrhythmia. More interestingly, this effect is independent of the COX-2 enzyme.

Satpal Singh and his colleagues tested various Celecoxib doses on the heart rate of Drosophila, a good model for human cardiac pharmacology. To their surprise, administering 3 m Celecoxib (not much higher than the plasma levels in humans taking the drug) reduced heart rate and increased beating irregularities, while 30 m was enough to stop the heart within a minute.

The surprise arises from the fact that Drosophila do not have COX-2 enzymes. Rather, Celecoxib could directly inhibit the potassium channels that help generate the electric current that drives heartbeat.

The scientists could achieve similar heart-stopping results in rat cardiac cells, whereas aspirin, another potent COX-2 inhibitor, had no effect, confirming that another mechanism is at work. The drug also inhibited rat and human potassium channels expressed in a human cell line.

Singh and his colleagues point out that since these arrhythmia effects bypass COX-2, it is unclear if other COX-2 inhibitors would yield similar results. They also stress it is too early to speculate on human effects, eventhough their results suggest Drosophila are a valuable tool to investigate other COX-2 drugs......... Posted by: Sarah      Read more         Source

January 14, 2008, 3:39 PM CT

New buffer resists pH change

Scientists at the University of Illinois have found a simple solution to a problem that has plagued researchers for decades: the tendency of chemical buffers used to maintain the pH of laboratory samples to lose their efficacy as the samples are cooled. The research team, headed by chemistry professor Yi Lu, developed a method to formulate a buffer that maintains a desired pH at a range of low temperatures.

The study appears this month in Chemical Communications.

Researchers have known since the 1930s that the pH of chemical buffers that are used to maintain the pH of lab samples can change as those samples are cooled, with some buffers raising and others lowering pH in the cooling process.

Freezing is a standard method for extending the shelf life of biological specimens and pharmaceuticals, and biological samples are routinely cooled to slow chemical reactions in some experiments. Even tiny changes in the acidity or alkalinity of a sample can influence its properties, Lu said.

"We like to freeze proteins, nucleic acids, pharmaceutical drugs and other biomolecules to keep them a long time and to study them more readily under very low temperatures using different spectroscopic techniques and X-ray crystallography," Lu said. "But when the pH changes at low temperature, the sample integrity can change"......... Posted by: Sarah      Read more         Source

December 20, 2007, 8:49 PM CT

About Methane Bubbling Up From the Ocean Floor

Methane, a potent greenhouse gas, is emitted in great quantities as bubbles from seeps on the ocean floor near Santa Barbara. About half of these bubbles dissolve into the ocean, but the fate of this dissolved methane remains uncertain. Scientists at the University of California, Santa Barbara have discovered that only one percent of this dissolved methane escapes into the air -- good news for the Earth's atmosphere.

Coal Oil Point (COP), one of the world's largest and best studied seep regions, is located along the northern margin of the Santa Barbara Channel. Thousands of seep fields exist in the ocean bottom around the world, as per David Valentine, associate professor of Earth Science at UC Santa Barbara. Valentine along with other members of UCSB's seeps group studied the plume of methane bubbles that flows from the seeps at COP.

Their results will soon be published as the cover story in Volume 34 of Geophysical Research Letters. This research effort is the first time that the gas that dissolves and moves away from COP, the plume, has been studied.

The amount of methane release from COP seeps is around two million cubic feet per day, as per Valentine. About 100 barrels of oil oozes out of this area as well. Methane warms the Earth 23 times more than carbon dioxide when averaged over a century. Thus the fate of the methane bubbles from the seeps is an important environmental question......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

December 18, 2007, 8:14 PM CT

Powerful carbon-based electronics

Bypassing decades-old conventions in making computer chips, Princeton engineers developed a novel way to replace silicon with carbon on large surfaces, clearing the way for new generations of faster, more powerful cell phones, computers and other electronics.

The electronics industry has pushed the capabilities of silicon -- the material at the heart of all computer chips -- to its limit, and one intriguing replacement has been carbon, said Stephen Chou, professor of electrical engineering. A material called graphene -- a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb lattice -- could allow electronics to process information and produce radio transmissions 10 times better than silicon-based devices.

Until now, however, switching from silicon to carbon has not been possible because technologists believed they needed graphene material in the same form as the silicon used to make chips: a single crystal of material eight or 12-inches wide. The largest single-crystal graphene sheets made to date have been no wider than a couple millimeters, not big enough for a single chip. Chou and scientists in his lab realized that a big graphene wafer is not necessary, as long they could place small crystals of graphene only in the active areas of the chip. They developed a novel method to achieve this goal and demonstrated it by making high-performance working graphene transistors......... Posted by: Sarah      Read more         Source

December 12, 2007, 9:50 PM CT

Device Generates and Traps Rare Ultracold Molecules

Physicists at the University of Rochester have combined an atom-chiller with a molecule trap, creating for the first time a device that can generate and trap huge numbers of elusive-yet-valuable ultracold polar molecules.

Researchers believe ultracold polar molecules will allow them to create exotic artificial crystals and stable quantum computers.

"The neat thing about this technology is that it's a very simple, but highly efficient method," says Jan Kleinert, a doctoral physics student at the University of Rochester and designer of the new device. "It lets us produce huge quantities of these ultracold polar molecules, which opens so a number of doors for us".

The Thin WIre electroStatic Trap, or TWIST, is the first electrostatic polar molecule trap that works simultaneously with a magneto-optical atom trap. This means Kleinert can use the lasers of the magneto-optical trap, or MOT, to chill atoms to just a few millionths of a degree above absolute zero, then force the atoms to group into molecules, and instantaneously hold them in place with the electrostatic TWIST trap.

Traditionally, a complex process of creating and trapping is mandatory to produce these molecules, akin to repeatedly emptying and refilling the ice cube trays in your freezer, says Kleinert. A MOT with a TWIST, however, can create and store the chilled molecules in one place, instantly-more like a refrigerator with an automatic icemaker......... Posted by: Sarah      Read more         Source

December 10, 2007, 10:56 PM CT

Food source threatened by carbon dioxide

Carbon dioxide increasing in the atmosphere may affect the microbial life in the sea, which could have an impact on a major food source, warned Dr Ian Joint at a Science Media Centre press briefing today.

Dr Joint is sequencing the DNA of different ocean bacteria to find out how they will respond to an increase in carbon dioxide. So far from one experiment we have sequenced 300 million bases of DNA, about one tenth the size of the human genome. We are analyzing this ocean genome to see if changes might affect the productivity of the sea.

Worldwide, fish from the sea provide nearly a fifth of the animal protein eaten by man. If microscopic plants that fish eat are affected by carbon dioxide, this may deplete a major food source.

Bacteria still control the world said Dr Joint from Plymouth Marine Laboratory. They ensure that the planet is fertile and that toxic materials do not accumulate. The carbon dioxide produced by humans is turning the oceans into weak acids. This century, the seas will be more acidic than they have been for 20 million years.

There are a number of millions of different bacteria in the ocean. They control the cycling of oxygen, carbon, nitrogen and sulphur; microbes in the sea generate half of the oxygen produced globally every year. So the atmosphere could also be affected by ocean acidification. Bacteria made the earth suitable for animals by producing oxygen nearly 2 billion years ago. We want to find out if human activities will have a major impact on microbial life in the seas and if this is likely to be a problem for mankind in the future......... Posted by: Sarah      Read more         Source

December 4, 2007, 10:20 PM CT

Research On Hydrogen Storage

Research on hydrogen-fueled cars may be one step closer to application thanks to a new form of hydride discovered by researchers at the ESRF. The material, lithium borohydride, is a promising energy storage system: it contains 18 weight percents of hydrogen, which makes it attractive for use in hydrogen-fueled cars. Its drawback is that it only releases hydrogen at quite high temperatures (above 300 degrees C). The team at the ESRF has found a new form of the compound that could possibly release hydrogen in mild conditions. This discovery, completely unexpected from the point of view of theoretical predictions, is published recently as a Very Important Paper in Angewandte Chemie.

Atomative industry hydrogen as a perspective energy carrier. If a good hydrogen strorage material will be developed, the petrol in cars can be replaced by clean hydrogen energy. Five kilograms of hydrogen would take you as far as twenty liters of petrol. Today there are several compounds of interest, which are known to either store relatively large amounts of hydrogen or release it easily, but none do both in a way suitable for practical application.

Scientists at the Swiss-Norwegian experimental stations (beamlines) at the ESRF are currently studying several compounds of light elements with hydrogen and the different forms they take at different pressure and temperature. Lithium borohydride, LiBH4, is one of the compounds they study as it has a high weight content of hydrogen (18%). The new form of this compound, which researchers have just discovered, is promising because it appears to be unstable. Until......... Posted by: Sarah      Read more         Source