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Scientists Create Compound With a Single Element
Posted by
samzenpus
on Wed Feb 04, 2009 09:12 PM
from the a-bit-of-a-hermit dept.
from the a-bit-of-a-hermit dept.
rocketman768 writes "An international team of researchers including scientists at the Carnegie Institution has discovered a new chemical compound that consists of a single element: boron. Chemical compounds are conventionally defined as substances consist of two or more elements, but the researchers found that at high pressure and temperature pure boron can assume two distinct forms that bond together to create a novel 'compound' called boron boride."
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Eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Eh? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Eh? (Score:5, Funny)
I think my head just exploded. Compound, of one element. What next transparent aluminum?
Geez, get with the program! Next, an element made of two different atomic molecules.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Consequently, we're going to have to nuke you from orbit (as this is the only way to be sure).
Re:Eh? (Score:4, Funny)
Well, he did say he only THINKS his head exploded.
By the theory of Occam's Razor, it's much likely he's just delusional...
Parent
Re:Eh? (Score:5, Funny)
Oxyboron.
Best. Tag. Ever.
I _actually_ blew snot over my keyboard laughing when I saw that.
Parent
Speak for yourself (Score:2)
We're intimate with dilithium crystals??
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Milla Jovavich is carved out of Boron? I don't believe it!
I don't understand (Score:5, Interesting)
Why is this not an allotrope [wikipedia.org]? I'm not a chemist so excuse me if the answer seems obvious to those with a better understanding.
Re:I don't understand (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is this not an allotrope [wikipedia.org]? I'm not a chemist so excuse me if the answer seems obvious to those with a better understanding.
That's exactly what I was wondering. The title made me wonder "what? graphite? diamonds?"
Parent
Re:I don't understand (Score:5, Informative)
Because an allotrope is a different arrangement of the same element on its own.
You can find a diamond and you can also find graphite.
This would be like a graphite diamond.
Parent
Re:I don't understand (Score:5, Informative)
Reading the intro paragraph of the article, I have an answer.
This is an IONIC compound. Someone felt that it was an unnecessary or unimportant distinction to make.
It's the first IONIC compound to be composed of only one element.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Isn't that what things like O2 are, also? Or am I remembering my high school chemistry incorrectly?
Re:I don't understand (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, I figured that out when I read further down in the comments.
But thanks for explaining it. You did a better job than some of the others.
Except of course it isn't REALLY that simple... (Score:5, Informative)
Not to say you are at all wrong, it is a good explanation, but the distinction between 'ionic' and 'covalent' bonds is really one of a matter of degree between 2 extremes.
At the one extreme we have single element compounds like H2 or O2 in which the electronegativity of the component atoms is (by definition) equal and thus have an even charge distribution and are entirely covalent. This is the simplest case.
At the other extreme we have substances like NaCl which are made up of atoms with extremely different electronegativities. However there is no such thing as a purely 'ionic' bond. Even in an extremely polar molecule like NaCl the charge distribution isn't ENTIRELY Na+1 and Cl-1. It very nearly is, but not quite.
MOST compounds are far less clear cut. Even H2O's bonds, which are fairly polar and is composed of 2 species with very different electronegativity the bond is generally characterized as having both an ionic and a covalent character.
So, our boron boride is also going to be a compound which is not going to be entirely clearly either ionic nor covalent.
The real problem is that these terms only signify useful generalizations about how chemical species behave. While chemistry CAN be reduced to physics in a reasonably straightforward way in principle, the reality is that most of the terms and most of the ways chemists ordinarily think about chemistry is a set of 'rules of thumb' which are based as much on observation and valued as much for their general utility as they are based on precise formulations of fundamental laws and processes. Even the notion of 'compound' is really to a certain extent a convenience and necessarily gets a bit fuzzy at the 'edges'.
Parent
Re:Except of course it isn't REALLY that simple... (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Excuse me? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Reduced to physics? Reduced to physics!! Grr.
If its being 'reduced' to physics, then is the rest of it unscientific alchemy?
Mathematics. [xkcd.com]
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You're saying that there's no such thing as table salt. This is obviously false.
Compounds with strong ionic bonds tend to disassociate completely in water forming the constituent ions (completely being as previously indicated - not really complete).
However, the moment that they leave the water, they're back to what they were - full molecules again.
Actually no (Score:3, Insightful)
In a crystal of table salt there are no molecules. No one Na+ is associated with any one given Cl-. The crystal is made up of alternating Na and Cl atoms, sort of like a checkerboard.
Highly ionic crystalline solids are compounds, but not composed of molecules, and in fact NaCl is NEVER a molecule. In aqueous solution it dissociates entirely. If you melt it you still have a situation where the various atoms move freely in the now liquid substance.
Very few highly ionic substances, salts, even CAN be vaporized
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
From TFA, actually, Boron Boride is composed of two separate molecules, both of which are allotropes.
So, it's not really BB, but B2B7 or so... I'm less interested in reading TFA again, but you should be able to look it up yourself.
Re:I don't understand (Score:5, Informative)
AFAIK, an allotrope is just a different spatial arrangement of atoms without any transfer of electrons. However, in this case, the arrangement is such that there is a transfer of charge from one set of atoms to another.
From TFA,
How can an element be ionic? Classical chemistry textbooks indicate that charge transfer occurs when atoms have different electronegativities and this automatically disqualifies pure elements as possible ionic phases. Boron finds a surprising solution to this problem â" its new structure contains two very different types of nanoclusters, B12 icosahedra (blue in the figure above) and B2 dumbbells (orange in the figure above). The electronic structures of these two clusters are very different â" in fact, the dependence of electronic properties on the size of the cluster is well known and is the main idea of nanotechnology. Electronegativities of the B12 icosahedra and B2 pairs are different, and this causes charge redistribution and the emergence of partial ionicity in this elemental structure.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
This one is a compound made from two different forms of the same element. First of its kind.
Boring... (Score:5, Funny)
Sorry, had to say it. :)
Oblig. Quote (Score:5, Funny)
"Nobody does it like molten boron"
http://theinfosphere.org/images/thumb/7/78/Molten_Boron.jpg/200px-Molten_Boron.jpg [theinfosphere.org]
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Not if you copy the link and then paste into your browser's address field. That way there's no referrer.
Puzzled.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Puzzled.. (Score:5, Informative)
they're covalent, not ionic.
Parent
Re:Puzzled.. (Score:5, Informative)
Whats the difference between that, and say, N2 or O2? Aren't those also compounds of a single element?
With oxygen and nitrogen the two atoms are identical for all intents and purposes. They share electrons evenly. In this case you have boron atoms that are giving up electrons and boron atoms that are accepting them to reach a stable state. So they're behaving differently, rather than the same.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure you can probably get those two to bind together with some work. What I'd like to know is if you could get two of them to stick to an oxygen atom and sort of share their electrons amongst them. Honestly - is that bond even possible? Well, I suppose by now someone has managed it.
Re: (Score:2)
You have to have electro negativity charge difference > 2 in order to be considered ionic.
Re: (Score:2)
As I'm sure has been repeated, it appears that this is a compound of Boron where the Boron exists in two different covalently bonded structures, with different electronegativities. This results in the two structures forming ionic bonds.
Big Deal.... (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
I know that you're joking but...
That's definitely not going to work. It's highly unlikely that anything with fewer electrons than Li is going to be capable of doing that sort of sorcery. Doing it with Boron is kind of neat.
And on top of that it's unlikely that an odd number of atoms is going to work without the atoms having an even number of electrons.
Of course it's been a long time since I took chemistry so I might be wrong.
Related (Score:5, Funny)
Boron Boride, the nobleman? This discovery is an abomination, like the Boride of Frankenstein. And isn't Boron the cousin of the famous Ukranian trumpet player, Boris Boride? I know, my jokes are so bad you must think I'm a total stupid boron. What happens when you drill the surface of something? You boron it. What happens when the drill goes out of control and starts flopping all over the place and you're stuck on top? Boron bo-ride!
Ok I'll stop.
*OT* Re: Karma (Score:4, Funny)
Finally out of Bad Karma hell, lets see how long THAT lasts.
You won't help the situation by joking around (no Karma for Funny), you need to bash Microsoft or something.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Or haxxor Cowboy Neil to make it possible to get karma from funny.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, I for one, am looking forward to your bor-oncore later.
all you are doing (Score:2, Funny)
is compounding your embarassment
Miswritten summary (Score:5, Informative)
Frankly, the article is interesting enough without mangling it in the summary.
This is the first ionic crystal to consist of only one element. As a compound, by definition, contains two elements, it's not a compound. A boron ionic crystal is substantially different from, say, the multiple allotropes of carbon, though.
However, this is a solely theoretical crystal -- it hasn't been synthesized.
Re:Miswritten summary (Score:4, Informative)
Actually it has been synthesized. The structure was determined using a computational method, though. In other words, they couldn't use standard techniques to interpret the x-ray diffraction data and had to use the evolutionary structure prediction method mentioned in the paper.
What I find kind of amazing is the news article mentions a Vickers hardness of 50 GPa. The journal article doesn't mention anything about that, unless it is somewhere in the supplementary materials, but anyway, if the news article estimated correctly based on the reported phase transformation pressures...that's pretty damn hard!
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Don't be a boron ! (Score:5, Funny)
Because boron boride is actually the cure for cancer. You'll see.
Yes, first you need to pressurize the patient to 100,000 atmospheres. Tada! You're no longer going to die of cancer.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Because every new vapor-ware discovery will cure cancer, make free power, and cause your re-productive organs to tingle.
Remember, when you gaze into the boron boride crystal, the boron boride crystal gazes back into you.
Boron Boride Boring (Score:2)
Oblig. Family Guy reference: (Score:2)
Boron Boride: Buzz Killington's [wikipedia.org] little brother...
Na-Na+ (Score:5, Interesting)