Chemists Just Rearranged Atomic Bonds in a Single Molecule for the First Time
upstart writes:
Chemists Just Rearranged Atomic Bonds in a Single Molecule for the First Time:
Chemical engineering has taken a step forward, with researchers from the University of Santiago de Compostela in Spain, the University of Regensburg in Germany, and IBM Research Europe forcing a single molecule to undergo a series of transformations with a tiny nudge of voltage.
Ordinarily, chemists gain precision over reactions by tweaking parameters such as the pH, adding or removing available proton donors to manage the way molecules might share or swap electrons to form their bonds.
"By these means, however, the reaction conditions are altered to such a degree that the basic mechanisms governing selectivity often remain elusive," the researchers note in their report, published in the journal Science.
In other words, the complexity of forces at work pushing and pulling across a large organic molecule can make it hard to get a precise measure on what's occurring at each and every bond.
The team started with a substance called 5,6,11,12-tetrachlorotetracene (with the formula C18H8Cl4) - a carbon-based molecule that looks like a row of four honeycomb cells flanked by four chlorine atoms hovering around like hungry bees.
Sticking a thin layer of the material to a cold, salt-crusted piece of copper, the researchers drove the chlorine-bees away, leaving a handful of excitable carbon atoms holding onto unpaired electrons in a range of related structures.
Two of those electrons in some of the structures happily reconnected with each other, reconfiguring the molecule's general honeycomb shape. The second pair were also keen to pair up not just with each other, but with any other available electron that might buzz their way.
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