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A New Kind of Chemistry 57

Posted by Hemos from the rethinking-atoms dept.
pq writes "Reasearchers at VCU, Pennsylvania State have created "superatoms" of aluminium and iodine that behave like the alkaline earth metals. From the article: "Our production of such a species is a stirring development that may lead to new compounds with a completely new class of chemistry and applications". Another article on Biomedcentral"
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A New Kind of Chemistry More

A New Kind of Chemistry

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  • 'Nanotech' implications? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by tod_miller ( 792541 ) on Monday January 17, 2005 @10:04AM (#11385229) Journal
    I have been waiting for some kind of similar announcement, something that will have some impact in nanotech thinking circles. Although this area of nanotech is completely hyped and misrepresented by every company involved in it.

    The goal is to use these clusters as building blocks to tailor the design and formation of materials with selected properties.

    They have basically coated aluminium atoms with iodine atoms, and produced a molecule that acts like a huge iodine atom, but with hybrid properties.

    In the future 'chemical computing' (not computational chemistry) can be achieved and allowing us to build primitive components of a mass production system (basically a highly iterative and controlled series of reactions, building larger and larger blocks, that progress down a conveyer belt).

    Anyway, it sounds good, and I cannot wait until the real application of this becomes app'nt (breaking the current nm barrier in CPU tech so we can hit 10ghz at consumer level).
    • What would be the practical applications of these super-atom overlords? Extra-large selectively-reactive iodine atoms are cool, but I don't see just yet how it would revolutionize the world.

      I understand this is the first step on a long staircase of discovery, but can anyone tell me where the staircase goes?

      • Perhaps these are the solution to fat/too many finger problems associated with the nut job ideas of 'nanotech' which is a stupid word to describe programmable chemistry.

        I cannot see how a conveyor belt would work, but each individual 'engine' would merely be a iterated series of controlled reactions, designed to create the right mix, which get filtered into 'clean' factories, and then each one gets processed.

        Being able to combine super atoms in clever ways, or using superatoms to combine other products, c
    • ...primitive components of a mass production system (basically a highly iterative and controlled series of reactions, building larger and larger blocks, that progress down a conveyer belt).

      Anyway, it sounds good, and I cannot wait until the real application of this becomes app'nt (breaking the current nm barrier in CPU tech so we can hit 10ghz at consumer level).

      I think you're too much into molecular assembly. Nanotech has slowly acquired a new meaning: Use of nanostructures (nanotubes) and quantum physi
      • I think some people were quite upset that the word nanotech was hijacked by infant technologies trying to gain venture capitalist funding.

        Anyone knows, if you haven't got at least one cool buzzword in your pitch, you can't afford a ferrari afterwards.

        Yes I also read the article on 'DNA' being used in chips, I think it was on some geeky nerd news site... *thinks* :-)

  • Just one step closer (Score:5, Funny)

    by AtariAmarok ( 451306 ) on Monday January 17, 2005 @10:10AM (#11385278)
    Just one step closer to the transparent aluminum whale-aquarium.
    • Actually this might not be as far fetched. Glass is basically "organized" silicon (I think, if I'm remebering right) so it wouldn't be that far-fetched to tag some silicon strands onto AL and have your nice little aquarium.

      IANAC:JAUS (I am not a chemist:Just another uninformed slash-dotter).
  • From the Times Dispatch story:
    When the number of iodine "ornaments" is an even number, the "superatom" is very stable and doesn't react with other elements, even oxygen. If the number of "ornaments" is odd, the superatom is reactive.
    From The Scientist:
    For example, when the 14-atom aluminum cluster combines with three iodine atoms, it creates an ion with overall negative charge which is actually extremely stable. Such novel properties provide the potential for creating radically new nanoscale materials, Khanna said. He noted that the work on clusters containing iodine could have important medical applications, given the element's key role in a number of biochemical pathways.

    I'm probably misreading something, but it seems that since there are 3 iodine atoms in this molecule, it should be reactive and not stable (at least acording to the first article).

    It will be interesting to see if this opens up broad new areas of chemical engineering, but since the technology seems somewhat old, I am skeptical that this is as revolutionary as it sounds to my undereducated ears.

  • Super-atoms? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by AlgaeEater ( 838019 ) on Monday January 17, 2005 @10:36AM (#11385488) Homepage
    Looks like they are more like molecules (or rather metalic latice fragments). Calling them 'super atoms' is a little misleading; it make them sound like a man-made atom when they are not. Ionic-alloys might be better terminology. Interesting though, if the process can be made cheap enough we may be able to mimic the properties of incredibly rare metals and use a man-made substitute in their stead. AE

    • Even better, we could mimic the properties of metals that we want, without their drawbacks. Lead is an extremely useful metal; if we could create something with it's beneficial properties and lose the whole poison thing, just think of the boost to industry.

      • Re:Super-atoms? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by belg4mit ( 152620 )
        Many properties are related (they all stem from the same root causes afterall: mass and electron configuration). You want to have your cacke and eat it too.
      • Even better, we could mimic the properties of metals that we want, without their drawbacks. Lead is an extremely useful metal; if we could create something with it's beneficial properties and lose the whole poison thing, just think of the boost to industry.

        I'm afraid I'd have to remain a bit wary of this, because of the connection between environmental alu and alzheimers. What man can put together, nature has already figured out a way to take it apart, in most cases, the pcb's being the monumental exampl
        • Tell someone from the Cominco smelter that metal poisoning is over-rated. They wouldn't be able to reply very well, because at the age of 30, their teeth have all fallen out, and the hair is close behind.
          • First, I have no idea who cominco smelter is, or where. As for teeth, I still have about 27 of mine, 3 of which are wisdom FWTW, and while my hair has never been thick and luxurious, and its getting a bit thinner in the middle as the years go by, but the hairline itself has not receeded and I still need a haircut about every 2-3 weeks as usual. Overdue right now in fact.

            Granted, my heavy metals exposure would be far less than someone working in a poorly ventilated smelter would be, but the epa should be
            • The Cominco smelter is one of the oldest smelters in North America (Canada, actually) operating since 1895. I'll be closing down soon, thank god, although the river live in the area is not expected to return. Ever.

              They had lead, arsenic, thallium, and lord knows what else poisoning there, and they didn't even tell anyone thallium was on the premises until 2001. There was a fine, an apology, and that was it. True, this is a bad example, since it is a huge old smelter, and not the most efficient thing

              • In other words you are saying thats its in the local water supply that people are also drinking? Good grief.

                And any idiot, raving from thirst in the desert, and coming across a pool of water, knows that first, before you drink, make sure there are some bugs etc in the water, because if there isn't, its poisoned water.

                How far downriver it it dead? All the way to the St. Lauwrance? (sp)

                --
                No cheers on this one, Gene
                • Well, all the way to the St Laurence would be fascinating to see, since it's in British Columbia, above the Idaho/Montana border. ;)

                  Yeah, the river is pretty messed up, but downriver where it joins up with other tributaries it dilutes enough to allow some life, and by the time it reaches the ocean you can barely tell, but a large portion of the valley is pretty well poisoned. Cancer and leukemia rates are something like triple normal, but there's so few people (just Cominco workers, and their families) l

                  • My bad, wrong end of the country.

                    Thats the effect on the IQ of all that heavy metal. Athritics every one of them too I expect. But if you know you're a goner, why not have another beer and forget it even faster?

                    Sad but oh so true.

                    --
                    No Cheers this time, Gene
    • That sounds like a better description to me. I agree "super-atoms" is a really bad name. I'm no expert in chemistry so perhaps there is something about these clusters that causes the radical [wikipedia.org] moniker to be inappropriate.

      • Re:How about radicals? (Score:2, Informative)

        by Xilman ( 191715 )
        I'm no expert in chemistry so perhaps there is something about these clusters that causes the radical moniker to be inappropriate.

        In chemistry, the term radical is almost always reserved for electrically neutral species containing an unpaired electron (very rarely, two unpaired electrons). By this measure, these metal clusters are not radicals.

        Paul

  • From the article...

    In contact with air, aluminum quickly is coated with a layer of aluminum oxide that resists corrosion.

    Maybe it's resistant to corrosion because it's already corroded. Oxidization is corrosion!

    • Re:Ugh... Get your facts (Score:4, Informative)

      by AlgaeEater ( 838019 ) on Monday January 17, 2005 @10:51AM (#11385615) Homepage
      Corrosion. def: a state of deterioration in metals caused by oxidation or chemical action.

      Corrosion tends to be used for a continual process of deterioration whereas the oxidation coating formed on aluminium is very stable and prevents any further corrosion. A similar thing happens with the carbon lattice in diamond; it is a hydrogen coating rather than oxygen though.

      AE
    • True. The statement should say that the layer of aluminum oxide resists further corrosion.
    • corrosion is an ongoing process as long as the environment doesn't change, like with iron and water.

      aluminium gets this ultra thin oxide layer and doesn't react any further.
      so they're right
  • Aluminum is highly reactive; however, bulk pieces are passivated by near-instantaneous formation of an impermeable oxide layer, in air.

    The article describes formation of aluminum clusters of some small number (13 or 14) of atoms which are passivated (made non-reactive) by some variable numbers of iodine atoms. The resulting cluster presents iodine atoms to the outside world and thus acts as a big iodide atom.

  • ... some guys have invented "emulation mode" for atoms. I expect their project should have an Alpha release, soon... ;)
  • What kind of chemical bonding binds the iodine atoms to the aluminum? I don't really 'get' how it works. Aluminum, if I remember correctly, normally has a +3 charge. Iodine is variable, but likes to be at -1. So in "normal" chemistry, compounds like AlI3 are pretty common. How does this "new" chemistry work? I know they substitute an aluminum atom into a chain of iodine atoms, and the iodine 'wraps' around the aluminum, making it a core. It's not really like iodine just kind of clumps together around an a
    • Gah. I'm a first-year Chem major, and this is puzzling the hell out of me.

      Don't worry. I got a physics degree and don't know how it works either :P.

      You can't just count electrons here to see what is going on here. You'll have to do some quamtum mechanics. What they claim to do is to have a cluster of atoms bind to form a molecule that has a wavefunction equivelent (or close enough) to a different element. They call it "superatom" just because it is physically larger.

      If they actually produced something

      • It's motherfuckin' ALCHEMY! That's what it is. Transmutation. Ah, my chemistry professor will have me burned at stake. Anyone think the ancients were on to something? Maybe there's some truth to dragons too. (Sorry, I'm a fan of anime, and I just saw Full Metal Alchemist.)
      • The 'new class' (atomic, molecular clusters) has been around a while, but only at near-0K temperature. This is the first 'room temperature' system I've heard of.

    • Re:Chemical Bonding? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Dachannien ( 617929 ) on Monday January 17, 2005 @02:16PM (#11387814)
      Well, there are some non-first-year concepts at work here. From looking at the Science* [sciencemag.org] article (14 Jan 2005 issue, p 231-235), I gather that the aluminum atoms form a small "jellium" cluster. Within a cluster of this type, the electrical potential is relatively uniform, but there are boundary effects at the edge of the cluster.

      In the Al13 cluster, the inner electrons are kept in normal ground states, and combined with the atoms' protons, form a net positive charge. The outer (valence) electrons react to this charge by falling into energy states dependent upon the whole Al13 molecule, not the individual atoms. In fact, the molecule's energy states can resemble those of other atoms, and can behave in the same ways that those other atoms do. Al13, for example, resembles a halogen, and so it binds to varying numbers of iodine atoms covalently.

      Now, I'm not actually a chemist (I was brought up in electrical engineering and computer science), so my reading of the details might be wrong, but I think that's how it works.

      (* You'll either need a Science subscription, or you'll need to access from the domain of an institution that has a site subscription. The vast majority of US universities do.)

  • The Times-Dispatch article refers to the 13- and 14- atom clusters as "Al13" and "Al14." Wouldn't that be regular aluminum and an isotope of aluminum with one extra neutron, or does the lack of a dash really make the difference?

    I notice that The Scientist's version of the article does not use this terminology.
  • I wish the story would include references to the works that they are describing. There are more than a couple of groups involved in this research, and they all deserve credit. In particular, I know that chemists at JHU are working with Khanna on these clusters with atomic like angular electronic behavior. In fact, I was at first a little incredulous when they described the properties of these clusters at a meeting. Its pretty cool stuff though!
  • Perhaps we can turn lead into gold after all!
  • but.. is it just me or does it sound like all of those strange "element-like" things in Star Trek? Especially from the varying descriptions that you guys have replied with, they match very well to some of the very complicated images that are often flashed on the screens of the Star ships on Star Trek (I can't find the images, or I would provide a link, but in episodes like "Night Terrors", Data is at a computer, asking Troi which element that the aliens were describing, as to start an explosion to get away

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