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Full-time chemistry PhD student, part-time time-waster on Will and Beyond.
Will and Beyond
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- February 19, 2009
- 07:08 PM
- 1,019 views
Coffee Grounds as Biofuel
by Will in Will and Beyond
Coffee chemistry[1] and green chemistry are both very fun, and here's a great combination of the two. The Misra group out of University of Nevada took used coffee grounds and used them to create biodiesel and fuel pellets. Below is a flow chart summarizing what they are proposing.
Biodiesel is simply made by transesterifying fats and oils. The chemistry is pretty basic, and I'm not going into it, but take a glance at Wikipedia if it's new to you. Coffee grounds contain oils; the Starbucks g........ Read more »
Narasimharao Kondamudi, Susanta K. Mohapatra, & Mano Misra. (2008) Spent Coffee Grounds as a Versatile Source of Green Energy. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 56(24), 11757-11760. DOI: 10.1021/jf802487s
- December 2, 2008
- 11:23 AM
- 1,326 views
Helium: Graphene Balloons and Nobility
by Will in Will and Beyond
I haven't done a journal post in almost three months. Although I keep up with journals via RSS, we stopped discussing literature in group meetings, so I haven't bothered to post anything. First off, I normally avoid linking to ScienceDaily, since they annoying make me look up journal references manually, but when I looked today, there was a nice references section at the bottom, which even listed the DOI and gave a link directly to the article. Kudos to them.
Considering how many R........ Read more »
O. Leenaerts, B. Partoens, & F. M. Peeters. (2008) Graphene: A perfect nanoballoon. Applied Physics Letters, 93(19), 193107. DOI: 10.1063/1.3021413
- September 11, 2008
- 04:30 PM
- 1,082 views
Quadruple-clicked Catenanes
by Will in Will and Beyond
Browsing through the ASAP articles on JACS, I came across 'General Method for Synthesis of Functionalized Macrocycles and Catenanes Utilizing "Click" Chemistry'. Far from my field, but sounded interesting. Then I noticed it was done by the Schuster group at NYU.
To refresh myself, I read a review by John E. Moses, The growing applications of click chemistry, and through my Supramolecular Chemistry textbook on catenanes.
So they start off by putting alkynes on the ends of a chain so they can ........ Read more »
Jackson D. Megiatto, & David I. Schuster. (2008) General Method for Synthesis of Functionalized Macrocycles and Catenanes Utilizing “Click” Chemistry. Journal of the American Chemical Society. DOI: 10.1021/ja8050519
- August 27, 2008
- 10:29 PM
- 1,063 views
Slushes, Nanowords and Footnotes
by Will in Will and Beyond
The science
An experimentalist, Z.H. Li from Fudan University, and a computationalist, (is that a word?) D.G. Truhlar from University of Minnesota published a paper in JACS, "Nanosolids, Slushes, and Nanoliquids: Characterization of Nanophases in Metal Clusters and Nanoparticles". The basic idea is transferring the concept of a melting point (well, range) from the bulk scale to the nanoscale.
They did so by studying aluminum clusters, Aln, where n is 10-300. Before I get into their findings,........ Read more »
Zhen Hua Li, & Donald G. Truhlar. (2008) Nanosolids, Slushes, and Nanoliquids: Characterization of Nanophases in Metal Clusters and Nanoparticles. Journal of the American Chemical Society. DOI: 10.1021/ja802389d
- August 6, 2008
- 01:11 PM
- 862 views
Cool abstract picture of the day and a Lack of binding
by Will in Will and Beyond
The Gardinier group at Marquette Univ. have developed a new pentadentate ligand alpha,alpha,alpha',alpha'-tetra(pyrazolyl)lutidine. They just published their first paper in Inorganic Chemistry about it, and it will be the first in a series. It's made by four pyridines bound to another pyridine and a couple of tertiary or quaternary carbons, resulting in the five nitrogens of the pyridines being available for binding. Their abstract image is below; I approve. It reminds me of t........ Read more »
Tyler J. Morin, Brian Bennett, Sergey V. Lindeman, & James R. Gardinier. (2008) First-Row Transition-Metal Complexes of a New Pentadentate Ligand, α,α,α′,α′-Tetra(pyrazolyl)lutidine. Inorganic Chemistry. http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/doilookup/?10.1021/ic801093q
- August 4, 2008
- 03:11 PM
- 832 views
Revisiting Aligned Carbon Nanotubes
by Will in Will and Beyond
A little less than two weeks ago, I wrote about well-aligned CNTs, which was published in JACS.
I don't read Science too much outside of monitoring the RSS feeds, but today I came across a very similar article, Self-Sorted, Aligned Nanotube Networks for Thin-Film Transistors. The ideas behind the work are very similar. In the Science paper, the work was being done on amine/phenyl functionalized silicon surfaces, which is a little more applicable industrially, as compared with the JACS pa........ Read more »
M. C. LeMieux, M. Roberts, S. Barman, Y. W. Jin, J. M. Kim, & Z. Bao. (2008) Self-Sorted, Aligned Nanotube Networks for Thin-Film Transistors. Science, 321(5885), 101-104. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/doi/10.1126/science.1156588
- July 21, 2008
- 02:18 PM
- 948 views
Blatant Plagiarism
by Will in Will and Beyond
How do people get away with blatant plagiarism? Read the top introduction in the image below. Then read the second one. Seem familiar? It is the same, word for word. The first was published in Thin Solid Films in 2003 by C. D. Lokhande and his group in India at Shivaji University.
The second was plagiarized by J. J. Vittal and his group in Singapore at the National University of Singapore. The latter was published in the Journal of Materials Chemistry. The latter is definitely a better........ Read more »
Lu Tian, Ti Ouyang, Kian Loh, & Jagadese Vittal. (2006) La2S3 thin films from metal organic chemical vapor deposition of single-source precursor. Journal of Materials Chemistry, 16(3), 272. DOI: 10.1039/b511981b
G Bagde. (2003) Deposition and annealing effect on lanthanum sulfide thin films by spray pyrolysis. Thin Solid Films, 445(1), 1-6. DOI: 10.1016/S0040-6090(03)00467-X
- July 15, 2008
- 02:10 PM
- 936 views
Blatant Plagarism
by Will in Will and Beyond
How do people get away with blatant plagiarism? Read the top introduction in the image below. Then read the second one. Seem familiar? It is the same, word for word. The first was published in Thin Solid Films in 2003 by C. D. Lokhande and his group in India at Shivaji University.
The second was plagiarized by J. J. Vittal and his group in Singapore at the National University of Singapore. The latter was published in the Journal of Materials Chemistry. The latter is definitely a better........ Read more »
Lu Tian, Ti Ouyang, Kian Loh, & Jagadese Vittal. (2006) La2S3 thin films from metal organic chemical vapor deposition of single-source precursor. Journal of Materials Chemistry, 16(3), 272. DOI: 10.1039/b511981b
G Bagde. (2003) Deposition and annealing effect on lanthanum sulfide thin films by spray pyrolysis. Thin Solid Films, 445(1), 1-6. DOI: 10.1016/S0040-6090(03)00467-X
- June 19, 2008
- 01:13 PM
- 757 views
Nanolithography: What's the Point
by Will in Will and Beyond
A paper entitled 'Floating Tip Nanolithography' appeared in my RSS reader this morning. I make it a point to scoff when I see the nano- prefix being overused, but this got me questioning the whole field (assuming nanolithography is considered a field?), not just the world itself. There's too much nanostuff, but that's the point I'm making here. (And in the paper they do say: "NANO" revolution, sigh.) Why do nanolithography at all? Is this just some proof o........ Read more »
Alexander Milner, Kaiyin Zhang, & Yehiam Prior. (2008) Floating Tip Nanolithography. Nano Letters. DOI: 10.1021/nl801203c
- May 22, 2008
- 05:09 PM
- 934 views
Tricky Tricky Viruses
by Will in Will and Beyond
All I know about viruses I learned for the seminar that I gave a month ago or so. I've never taken biochem or virology, so there's my disclaimer.
Vaccinia (MVA) is a poxvirus, the class of viruses which includes smallpox. They're not fun organisms; the damage they do on cells is shown in the image above. MVA is a complex virus; it's not icosahedron or helical, and there's an intracellular and extracellular version. As far as viruses go, that's pretty complic........ Read more »
J Mercer, & A Helenius. (2008) Vaccinia Virus Uses Macropinocytosis and Apoptotic Mimicry to Enter Host Cells. Science, 320(5875), 531-535. DOI: 10.1126/science.1155164
- May 21, 2008
- 08:08 PM
- 949 views
Iron Worms: Stealing Your Chromium
by Will in Will and Beyond
In April's Journal of Solid State Chemistry, Honggang Fu's group published a paper on iron oxide nanoworms being used for water treatment. They don't actually use the term nanoworms; they just say "iron oxide with wormlike morphology", but nanoworms sounds cooler, and I've heard the term used before. Morphology is a good word, but it just doesn't match up.
Anyway, the idea is that they were able to create iron oxide that looks like it does in the image ab........ Read more »
L WAN, K SHI, X TIAN, & H FU. (2008) Facile synthesis of iron oxide with wormlike morphology and their application in water treatment. Journal of Solid State Chemistry, 181(4), 735-740. DOI: 10.1016/j.jssc.2008.01.019
- May 20, 2008
- 06:10 PM
- 954 views
Blue Quantum Dots by Microemulsion Oxidation
by Will in Will and Beyond
In an Inorganic Chemistry publication back in March 2008, Yadong Li's group at Tsingua Univ. synthesized CdSe nanoparticles that were small enough to fluoresce blue. Because of quantum confinement, nanoparticles (specifically quantum dots) fluoresce at shorter wavelengths with smaller radii. To synthesize quantum dots with radii this small is difficult; they must be smaller than 2 nm.
The method they employed was to first create nanoparticles by a microemulsion route, then mildly ox........ Read more »
Liping Liu, Qing Peng, & Yadong Li. (2008) An Effective Oxidation Route to Blue Emission CdSe Quantum Dots. Inorganic Chemistry, 47(8), 3182-3187. DOI: 10.1021/ic702203c
- May 19, 2008
- 08:07 PM
- 2,003 views
Determining Nanoparticle Concentration
by Will in Will and Beyond
Back in March, I found a communication in JACS about determining the concentration of quantum dot nanoparticles by measuring their fluorescence burst counts by the Johnson group at York College. The QD solution (which could be in aqueous or organic solvent) was passed through a laser to induce the excitement and the different wavelengths emitted were separated by dichroic mirrors. The scheme is shown below.
They refer to this as a simple and accurate process. They do get good results, so ........ Read more »
C-y Zhang, & LW Johnson. (2008) Simple and Accurate Quantification of Quantum Dots via Single-Particle Counting. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 130(12), 3750-3751. DOI: 10.1021/ja711493q
Takashi Ito, Ronald Henriquez, & Richard Crooks. (2004) A Carbon Nanotube-Based Coulter Nanoparticle Counter. Accounts of Chemical Research, 37(12), 937-945. DOI: ar040108
- May 15, 2008
- 02:15 PM
- 935 views
Chemistry classifies coffee
by Will in Will and Beyond
Lindinger's group at the Nestle Research Center in Switzerland published a study back in March 2008 in Analytical Chemistry about analyzing coffee with mass spec. I read about this on Engadget then promptly forgot about it. I even gave a presentation on it for my Analytical class, only later to see this in my RSS bookmarks.
Basically by using PTR-MS (proton transfer reaction mass spectrometry) they did an analysis of different coffees. They emphasized that this was a data-driven study,........ Read more »
C Lindinger, D Labbe, P Pollien, A Rytz, MA Juillerat, C Yeretzian, & I Blank. (2008) When Machine Tastes Coffee: Instrumental Approach To Predict the Sensory Profile of Espresso Coffee. Analytical Chemistry, 80(5), 1574-1581. DOI: 10.1021/ac702196z
- May 14, 2008
- 05:10 PM
- 924 views
Electrical Properties of Viruses Studied by AC-SPM
by Will in Will and Beyond
A paper was published in JACS (see below for reference) a couple months ago by the Matsui group at CUNY Hunter. The idea is that you can uniquely identify a virus by measuring its electrical properties.
We're not talking about a solution of viruses, this is measuring the electrochemistry of one individual virus particle, a virion. I'm not going to go into the details of the method, otherwise this post would be pages long, but the gist is that you put a virus onto a film of gold, ........ Read more »
RI MacCuspie, N Nuraje, S-Y Lee, A Runge, & H Matsui. (2008) Comparison of Electrical Properties of Viruses Studied by AC Capacitance Scanning Probe Microscopy. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 130(3), 887-891. DOI: 10.1021/ja075244z
- March 19, 2008
- 09:08 PM
- 911 views
Detecting Mercury with DNA and Gold Nanoparticles
by Will in Will and Beyond
In my continued search for a paper to do my graduate student literature seminar, I came across this interesting paper.
Published about three weeks ago the web in JACS, researchers at the National University of Singapore have found a way to easily detect mercury in water. The method they are developing is very efficient because it can be performed in the field, without instrumentation, using just the naked in about 5 minutes.
Gold nanoparticles (NPs) are functionalized with two different st........ Read more »
X Xue, F Wang, & X Liu. (2008) One-Step, Room Temperature, Colorimetric Detection of Mercury (Hg2 ) Using DNA/Nanoparticle Conjugates. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 130(11), 3244-3245. DOI: 10.1021/ja076716c
- March 19, 2008
- 09:08 PM
- 931 views
Global Warming... Maybe
by Will in Will and Beyond
I'm definitely not sold on global warming one way or the other. I don't think there's enough data to rule it out or prove it, but I do think research should continue. I'm not so sure I would sure Al Gore over it, though the idea is entertaining. I bring this up because I came across a 2006 paper from the Annual Review of Physical Chemistry, "Atmospheric Field Measurements of the Hydroxyl Radical Using Laser-Induced Fluorescence Spectroscopy". I found this in se........ Read more »
Dwayne Heard. (2006) ATMOSPHERIC FIELD MEASUREMENTS OF THE HYDROXYL RADICAL USING LASER-INDUCED FLUORESCENCE SPECTROSCOPY. Annual Review of Physical Chemistry, 57(1), 191-216. DOI: 10.1146/annurev.physchem.57.032905.104516
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