Molecules/Elements/Particles

 

Wednesday
Dec192012

Protactinium

"Protactinium is a chemical element with the symbol Pa and atomic number 91. It is a dense, silvery-gray metal which readily reacts with oxygen, water vapor and inorganic acids. It forms various chemical compounds where protactinium is usually present in the oxidation state +5, but can also assume +4 and even +2 or +3 states. The average concentrations of protactinium in the Earth's crust is typically on the order of a few parts per trillion, but may reach up to a few parts per million in some uraninite ore deposits. Because of the scarcity, high radioactivity and high toxicity, there are currently no uses for protactinium outside of scientific research, and for this purpose, protactinium is mostly extracted from spent nuclear fuel."

"Protactinium was first identified in 1913 by Kasimir Fajans and Oswald Helmuth Göhring and named brevium because of the short half-life of the specific isotope studied, namely protactinium-234. A more stable isotope (231Pa) of protactinium was discovered in 1917/18 by Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner, and they choose the name proto-actinium, but then theIUPAC named it finally protactinium in 1949 and confirmed Hahn and Meitner as discoverers. The new name meant "parent of actinium" and reflected the fact that actinium is a product of radioactive decay of protactinium."


Tuesday
Dec182012

Organochloride

"An organochloride, organochlorine, chlorocarbon, chlorinated hydrocarbon, or chlorinated solvent is an organic compound containing at least one covalently bonded chlorine atom. Their wide structural variety and divergent chemical properties lead to a broad range of applications. Many derivatives are controversial because of the effects of these compounds on the environment and on human and animal health."

"Chloride substituents modify the physical properties of organic compounds in several ways. They are typically denser than water due to the presence of high atomic weight of chlorine. Chloride substituents induce stronger intermolecular interactions than hydrogen substituents. The effect is illustrated by trends in boiling points: methane (-161.6 °C), methyl chloride (-24.2 °C), dichloromethane (40 °C), chloroform (61.2 °C), and carbon tetrachloride(76.72 °C). The increased intermolecular interactions is attributed to the effects of both van der Waals and polarity."

Sunday
Dec162012

Polyoxymethylene

"Polyoxymethylene (POM), also known as acetal,[1] polyacetal and polyformaldehyde is an engineering thermoplastic used in precision parts that require high stiffness, low friction and excellent dimensional stability. As with many other synthetic polymers, it is produced by different chemical firms with slightly different formulas and is therefore sold under various commercial names like DelrinCelcon and Hostaform."

"It was discovered by Hermann Staudinger, a German chemist who received the 1953 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He had studied the polymerization and structure of POM in the 1920s while researching macromolecules, which he characterized as polymers. Due to problems with thermal stability, POM was not commercialized at that time."

"POM is characterized by its high strength, hardness and rigidity to ~40 °C. POM is intrinsically opaque white, due to its high crystalline composition, but it is available in all colors. POM has a density of ρ = 1.410-1.420 g/cm3"

"POM homopolymer is a semi-crystalline polymer (75-85% crystalline) with a melting point of 175° Celsius. The POM copolymer has a slightly lower melting point of 162 – 173° Celsius."

 

Wednesday
Dec122012

Carbonic Anhydrase

"The carbonic anhydrases (or carbonate dehydratases) form a family of enzymes that catalyze the rapid interconversion of carbon dioxide and water to bicarbonate and protons (or vice versa), a reversible reaction that occurs rather slowly in the absence of a catalyst.[1] The active site of most carbonic anhydrases contains a zinc ion; they are therefore classified as metalloenzymes."

"One of the functions of the enzyme in animals is to interconvert carbon dioxide and bicarbonate to maintain acid-base balance in blood and other tissues, and to help transport carbon dioxide out of tissues."

Tuesday
Dec112012

Cyclodextrin

"Cyclodextrins (sometimes called cycloamyloses) are a family of compounds made up of sugar molecules bound together in a ring (cyclic oligosaccharides)."

"Cyclodextrins are produced from starch by means of enzymatic conversion. They are used in food, pharmaceutical,[1] drug delivery,[2] and chemical industries, as well as agriculture and environmental engineering. Hydroxypropyl Beta Cyclodextrin (HPβCD) is the chief active compound found in Procter and Gamble's deodorizing product "Febreze" under the brand name "Clenzaire"."

"Cyclodextrins are composed of 5 or more α-D-glucopyranoside units linked 1->4, as in amylose (a fragment of starch). The 5-membered macrocycle is not natural. Recently, the largest well-characterized cyclodextrin contains 32 1,4-anhydroglucopyranoside units, while as a poorly characterized mixture, at least 150-membered cyclic oligosaccharides are also known. Typical cyclodextrins contain a number of glucose monomers ranging from six to eight units in a ring, creating a cone shape."

Sunday
Dec092012

Berkelium

"Berkelium is a transuranic radioactive chemical element with the symbol Bk and atomic number 97, a member of the actinide and transuranium element series. It is named after the city of Berkeley, California, the location of the University of California Radiation Laboratory where it was discovered in December 1949. This was the fifth transuranium element discovered after neptuniumplutoniumcurium and americium."

"The major isotope of berkelium, berkelium-249, is synthesized in minute quantities in dedicated high-flux nuclear reactors, mainly at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, USA, and at the Research Institute of Atomic Reactors in Dimitrovgrad, Russia. The production of the second-important isotope berkelium-247 involves the irradiation of the rare synthetic isotope curium-244 with high-energy alpha particles."

Friday
Dec072012

Tricyclobutabenzene

Tricyclobutabenzene is an aromatic hydrocarbon consisting of a benzene core with three cyclobutane rings fused onto it. This compound and related compounds are studied in the laboratory because they are often display unusual conformations and because of their unusual reactivity. Tricyclobutabenzenes are isomers of radialenes and form an equilibrium with them.

The parent tricyclobutabenzene (C12H12) was first synthesised in 1979.

Wednesday
Dec052012

Krypton

"Krypton (from Greekκρυπτός kryptos "the hidden one") is a chemical element with symbol Kr and atomic number 36. It is a member of group 18 (noble gases) elements. A colorless, odorless, tasteless noble gas, krypton occurs in trace amounts in the atmosphere, is isolated by fractionally distilling liquified air, and is often used with other rare gases in fluorescent lamps. Krypton is inert for most practical purposes."

"Krypton, like the other noble gases, can be used in lighting and photography. Krypton light has a large number of spectral lines, and krypton's high light output in plasmas allows it to play an important role in many high-powered gas lasers (krypton ion and excimer lasers), which pick out one of the many spectral lines to amplify. There is also a specific krypton fluoride laser. The high power and relative ease of operation of krypton discharge tubes caused (from 1960 to 1983) the official length of a meter to be defined in terms of the 605 nm (red-orange) spectral line of krypton-86."

Tuesday
Dec042012

Cellulose

"Cellulose is an organic compound with the formula (C6H10O5)n, a polysaccharide consisting of a linear chain of several hundred to over ten thousand β(1→4) linked D-glucose units."

"Cellulose is the structural component of the primary cell wall of green plants, many forms of algae and the oomycetes. Some species of bacteria secrete it to form biofilms. Cellulose is the most common organic compound on Earth. About 33% of all plant matter is cellulose (the cellulose content of cotton fiber is 90%, that of wood is 40–50% and that of dried hemp is approximately 75%)"

"For industrial use, cellulose today is mainly obtained from wood pulp and cotton. Cellulose is mainly used to produce paperboard and paper; to a smaller extent it is converted into a wide variety of derivative products such as cellophane and rayon. Converting cellulose from energy crops into biofuels such as cellulosic ethanol is under investigation as an alternative fuel source."

Monday
Dec032012

Organosilicon Compounds

"Organosilicon compounds are organic compounds containing carbon silicon bondsOrganosilicon chemistry is the corresponding science exploring their properties and reactivity.[1]

Like carbon, the organically bound silicon is tetravalent and tetrahedral. Carbon-silicon bonds are generally absent in biochemical processes,[2] although there are reports of their fleeting existence in a freshwater alga.[3] The first organosilicon compound, tetraethylsilane, was discovered by Charles Friedel and James Crafts in 1863 by reaction of tetrachlorosilane with diethylzinc. The carbosilicon silicon carbide is an inorganic compound."

"Carbon–silicon bonds compared to carbon–carbon bonds are longer (186 pm vs. 154 pm) and weaker with bond dissociation energy 451 kJ/mol vs. 607 kJ/mol.[4] The C–Si bond is somewhat polarised towards carbon due to carbons greater electronegativity (C 2.55 vs Si 1.90). One manifestation of bond polarization in organosilanes is found in the Sakurai reaction. In oxidative couplings silicon is represented by the Hiyama coupling. Certain alkyl silanes can be oxidized to an alcohol in the Fleming–Tamao oxidation."

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