Chemistry Breakthrough Offers Unprecedented Control Over Atomic Bonds (newatlas.com) 44
"In what's being hailed as an important first for chemistry, an international team of scientists has developed a new technology that can selectively rearrange atomic bonds within a single molecule," reports New Atlas. "The breakthrough allows for an unprecedented level of control over chemical bonds within these structures, and could open up some exciting possibilities in what's known as molecular machinery."
"Selective chemistry — the ability to steer reactions at will and to form exactly the chemical bonds you want and no others — is a long-standing quest in chemistry," adds the announcement from IBM Research. "Our team has been able to achieve this level of selectivity in tip-induced redox reactions using scanning probe microscopy." Our technique consisted in using the tip of a scanning probe microscope to apply voltage pulses to single molecules. We were able to target specific chemical bonds in those molecules, breaking those bonds and forging new, different ones to switch back and forth at will among three different molecular structures.
The molecules in our experiment all consisted of the same atoms, but differed in the way those atoms were bonded together and arranged in space... Our findings were published today and featured on the cover of Science.
Our demonstration of selective and reversible formation of intramolecular covalent bonds is unprecedented. It advances our understanding of chemical reactions and opens a route towards advanced artificial molecular machines.... Imagine one could rearrange bonds inside a molecule at will, transforming one structural isomer into various other ones in a controlled manner. In this paper, we describe a system and a method to make exactly that possible — including the control of the direction of the atomic rearrangements by means of an external driving voltage, and without the use of reagents.
Thanks to Slashdot reader Grokew for sharing the story!
"Selective chemistry — the ability to steer reactions at will and to form exactly the chemical bonds you want and no others — is a long-standing quest in chemistry," adds the announcement from IBM Research. "Our team has been able to achieve this level of selectivity in tip-induced redox reactions using scanning probe microscopy." Our technique consisted in using the tip of a scanning probe microscope to apply voltage pulses to single molecules. We were able to target specific chemical bonds in those molecules, breaking those bonds and forging new, different ones to switch back and forth at will among three different molecular structures.
The molecules in our experiment all consisted of the same atoms, but differed in the way those atoms were bonded together and arranged in space... Our findings were published today and featured on the cover of Science.
Our demonstration of selective and reversible formation of intramolecular covalent bonds is unprecedented. It advances our understanding of chemical reactions and opens a route towards advanced artificial molecular machines.... Imagine one could rearrange bonds inside a molecule at will, transforming one structural isomer into various other ones in a controlled manner. In this paper, we describe a system and a method to make exactly that possible — including the control of the direction of the atomic rearrangements by means of an external driving voltage, and without the use of reagents.
Thanks to Slashdot reader Grokew for sharing the story!
Artificial gasoline (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Sure, it's the same as using the LHC to generate gold atoms from lead... to generate a profit.
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And people say SpaceChem [zachtronics.com] is not realistic!
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No, nothing does that. It doesn't make sense at all when you can make biofuels from algae, and you can grow algae on practically any water, and at most latitudes.
On the other hand, it is a first step towards a universal nanotech assembler. What all prior potential avenues in that direction have lacked (in particular, anyway) is the ability to target specific molecules.
Re:Artificial gasoline (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, first step in a similar fashion to IBM drawing their logo with atoms [wikipedia.org]
Given time and effort these could result in great things, or the Grey Goo [wikipedia.org] that so many people fear
I honestly hope that we see a new age of manufacturing with these products and that we manage to avoid killing ourselves off with them. Given the past 50 years with plastics... it may be a coin toss
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Given time and effort these could result in great things, or the Grey Goo that so many people fear
Grey goo should be hard, because where does the energy come from? But there's plenty of room for accidentally making large amounts of toxic stuff everywhere, you don't have to go full grey goo to kill everyone.
I honestly hope that we see a new age of manufacturing with these products and that we manage to avoid killing ourselves off with them. Given the past 50 years with plastics... it may be a coin toss
Agreed on all counts there.
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Grey goo should be hard, because where does the energy come from? But there's plenty of room for accidentally making large amounts of toxic stuff everywhere, you don't have to go full grey goo to kill everyone.
Well, you could have it eat protein, delicious, delicious protein since it can alter the molecules into fuel like our digestive tract does. On second thought....
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Whew! I thought that what was left over from squeezing geese to make vodka [wikipedia.org]. :-)
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I'm not gonna lie, I'm rooting for the Grey Goo.
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That can happen when you get old, but you should still have it checked out.
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Re: Artificial gasoline (Score:2)
Yes for a hydrogen car. As in a car so tiny only a hydrogen atom can drive it around, because this proof of concept currently requires an STM and you can only make one molecule one at a time.
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Just have it build more STMs.
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Sure. As long as you do not mind getting a few micro gram for each MWh invested.
Sounds useful for fundamental science... (Score:2)
While it only makes one molecule at a time (Score:2)
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it'll be part of the tech used in matter compilers when they are eventually invented.
Alchemist's dream. (Score:2)
Re:Alchemist's dream. (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Alchemist's dream. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, but this technology is about changing electron (chemical) bonds, in fact just covalent ones; it is not about re-arranging nuclei.
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We could for example, have miniature machines move inert molecules to targeted sites in the body, then convert them into an active molecule that performs some action like kill a clump of cancer cells.
Been around in science fiction for quite a while [wikipedia.org] may still be borderline for we see it for real in the next decade
Re: Alchemist's dream. (Score:3)
Weâ(TM)ve been able to do that for many decades. You just need a particle accelerator and some bismuth.
Alchemist's dream. POOF (Score:1)
Question (Score:3)
I read the first article which answered one of the questions I had. However, I had to do a quick DDG search to remember about chemical bonds.
If chemical bonds are nothing more than electrons, how are they able to apply an electrical pulse to these bonds to get them to do what they want? Is it simply the electrons of the pulse temporarily moving the electrons of the chemical bonds into a higher or lower state? Or would this be more like billiards where the electrons of the pulse "rearrange" the electrons of the chemical bonds to produce the desired result?
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... Is it simply the electrons of the pulse temporarily moving the electrons of the chemical bonds into a higher or lower state? Or would this be more like billiards where the electrons of the pulse "rearrange" the electrons of the chemical bonds to produce the desired result?
Are these not the same thing? Analogies we use so we can pretend to understand what's going on. Perhaps the only good answer is both and neither are correct. I can't even be sure when I say that the bonds have their own energy, whilst also taking energy to break. How one might apportion the energy held by the bond as opposed to the electrons involved in the bond, that's verging on philosophy it's so subjective.
As an afterthought, while we think of electrons as the charge carriers of an electric current, ano
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Let me try my two examples again. In the first, is the energy of the pulse being applied to the electons of the bonds to give them a higher or lower energy state which allows the couplings to be moved, or, in the second case, is the pulse "physically" rearranging the electrons to get the desired result?
I know those aren't the best analogies, but in the one case you're changing the energy level of the electron while in the second you're "moving" the electron without a change in energy level.
Or maybe one isn'
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Is it simply the electrons of the pulse temporarily moving the electrons of the chemical bonds into a higher or lower state? Or would this be more like billiards where the electrons of the pulse "rearrange" the electrons of the chemical bonds to produce the desired result?
That is a great question.
Selective chemistry -- the ability to steer reactions at will and to form exactly the chemical bonds you want and no others
It sounds like it is a little of column A and a little of column B. Column A will not give you exclusions by itself. It can only "prepare" the area for further manipulations.
Column B does not really pass the sniff test by itself. Colliding a free electron with a bound electron is going to be stupidly difficult because of the Pauli Exclusion Principle and Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and electrons are just absurdly small; however, it seems that some form of that must be taking pl
iron my clothes (Score:3)
Let me know when I can use this tech to iron my clothes. Just rearrange the wrinkles out for me please.
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I just want to release a few hydrogen bonds.
Big, if true (Score:2)
Maybe even speed it up and make a true 3D printer
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Read "The Diamond Age" by Neal Stephenson, I think you'll love it.
Careful what you wish for... (Score:2)
might be a 3D blockchain, since this is IBM we're talkin' about.
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"... once this is scaled up..." Aye, there's the rub. In a hundred grams of rust, there are on the order of 10**23 molecules. Re-arranging those one-by-one (which is apparently what this technology does) would take A Long Time. The universe is on the order of 10**18 seconds old, so if you started back when the universe was young, and your technology allowed you to re-arrange 100,000 molecules per second, you'd just be finishing next Tuesday.
Nothing very new (Score:2)
IBM and others have been using scanning tunneling microscopes to manipulate atoms and molecules in various ways for decades.
https://cen.acs.org/analytical... [acs.org]
Obligatory... (Score:2)
Think about this (Score:2)
Yes very useful... on a molecular scale... (Score:2)
Matter (Score:1)
Every (Score:2)
Every press release announces a new breakthrough. There were 6,435,243 press releases in 2021.