chemistry

Green chemistry could challenge biology as the central discipline of the 21st century

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 12:08:44 -0700

Description

At a recent X2 workshop on the future of chemistry and chemical industries, X2 researchers and executives and scientists constructed a map of the future of chemistry.

ZuiPrezi map from Innovation Day

The most interesting insight to emerge from the workshop involves green chemistry. The groups identified several major challenges that will drive research agendas and funding in chemistry in the 2010s: energy (in particular the fallout from declining oil supplies); resources (e.g., growing scarcity of natural resources, efforts to create renewable substitutes); health (in particular the challenges of aging populations); global problems like climate and population change; and regulation (especially around envrionmental protections and manufacturing processes). At the center of the map was green chemistry, which they argued had the capacity to contribute innovations across all these areas. If energy, resources, health and regulation present major challenges in the coming decade, green chemistry-- which includes efforts to develop environmentally low-impact (low-energy and low-water) manufacturing processes, renewable sources for synthetic products, cradle-to-cradle processes, etc.-- may represent the solution.

Another notable insight was the relative unimportance of nanotechnology, which workshop participants described as a subset of materials, or a set of tools rather than an autonomous field or research agenda.

It's a commonplace that the 21st century will be (or already is) the century of biology. Just as the 20th century was dominated by the physical sciences (think of the electronics revolution, nuclear power, the preeminence of physics in the popular imagination), the thinking goes, science in the 21st century will be driven by the life sciences. However, if these experts are right, then green chemistry could define a service role for itself that would rival genetic engineering, genomics and environmental science, and help establish its centrality in the applied sciences.

Signals

Berkeley scientists bring MRI/NMR to microreactors

Future of chemistry and chemical industries workshop

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 11:45:37 -0700

Description

Chemical Heritage Foundation

in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. X2 staff conducted a "speed workshop" with about 20 executives, laboratory managers, and research scientists, to explore the future of innovation in chemistry and chemical industries.

ZuiPrezi map from Innovation Day

The interactive version of the map is available here.

Probably the single most interesting thing to come out of the workshop was the idea of green chemistry as a potentially central field in 21st century science. As the map shows, participants identified a number of high-level trends or challenges that will influence science in the coming decade. All of them, workshop participants argued, can be attacked using green chemistry.

Future of chemistry

Source

Uploading of Spectra on ChemSpider

Jean-Claude Bradley — Fri, 02 May 2008 10:30:15 -0700

Description

Antony Williams writes (1):

I’ve posted previously about analytical data deposition on ChemSpider. There are now fairly regular depositions going on and an increasing number of spectra are available online...We have now enabled the deposition of CIF files onto the system...We have also supported the submission of images to associate with structures.

ChemSpider (2, 3) is a free and hosted database service that allows users to search and contribute information about organic molecules. The recently introduced ability to upload spectra of any kind, including NMR, MS, UV, IR and X-Ray crystallography now permits individual researchers to store full characterization information proving the structure of their compounds.

In contrast to simply listing peak information, uploading the raw data (in JCAMP-DX (4) format for the most part) allows other researchers to zoom into any part of the spectra to confirm structure assignment and purity. Errors are far less likely to occur and propagate this way.

Although these capabilities have been available for some time on commercial systems for private use, the free public availability offered by ChemSpider is a strong signal that Open Source Science in chemistry will only become easier and more reliable over time.

Future of chemistry

Source

1) http://www.chemspider.com/blog/ability-to-add-images-and-cifs-to-chemspider.html
2) http://www.chemspider.com
3) Disclosure: I am on the advisory board of ChemSpider
4) http://sourceforge.net/projects/jcamp-dx/

Methane Discovered in Exoplanet Atmosphere

Matt Daniels — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 15:11:31 -0700

Description

Researchers report in tomorrow's issue of Nature that a 40-minute gaze with the Hubble Space Telescope last May [2007] has revealed methane in the atmosphere of HD 189733b, a Jupiter-size planet orbiting close to its very bright parent star located 63 light-years away. The observation also confirmed last year's discovery by the Spitzer Space Telescope of water vapor in the planet's atmosphere (see: ScienceNOW, 11 July 2007).

ESA calls this a breakthrough [that] is an important step in eventually identifying signs of life on a planet outside our Solar System.

Science/AAAS News:

Astronomers have detected the organic molecule methane in the atmosphere of an extrasolar planet for the first time and have confirmed earlier observations of water vapor. Alas, the findings don't come close to suggesting that life has emerged on this other world, but they do contribute to a growing body of data about planetary evolution outside our own solar system.

Co-author Mark Swain of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, emphasized that HD 189733b is far too hot--average atmospheric temperature about 1000°C--to support life as we know it. But the presence of methane raises intriguing questions, he said, because the high temperature should have sequestered all of the carbon in the planet's atmosphere in the form of carbon monoxide (CO), not methane (CH4). That suggests a currently unknown chemical process is at work, he said.

Physics & Space Science

Source

http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/319/2

http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEMTZ1N5NDF_index_0.html

Conductive Polymers: The New Silicon?

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 11:10:29 -0700

Description

The unique properties of conductive polymers are likely to find application in a wide variety of electronic devices within the next couple of decades.

Plastics have traditionally been used as insulators, for instance as the casing around copper wire, because they conduct electricity so poorly. In the 1970s, however, researchers demonstrated that polymers doped with certain compounds could actually function as conductors of electricity. Because of plastic's flexibility, low cost, and light weight, the possibility of fashioning transistors from it to create plastic electronics holds great commercial interest. The use of ink-jet technology to print plastic transistors onto a range of materials has been demonstrated and is a major driver of the research into conductive polymers because of the benefits plastic offers over traditional silicon transistors.

Organic semiconductors are unlikely to ever achieve the switching speeds possible with silicon-based semiconductors, so plastic chips are unlikely to replace silicon ones in personal computers in the near future. Their use in display devices, however, has shown great promise, and the first commercial applications of conductive polymers are already on the market in displays for digital cameras and electric razors. Over the coming decade, an increasing number of display screens on common products are likely to incorporate organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). Such screens will be less expensive and more energy-efficient than existing LED display technology, which may be superseded altogether by OLEDs. Large displays that are just a few millimetres thick are already in development.

In 5 to 20 years, the next generation of products using conductive polymers are likely to be bendable displays and electronics, specifically electronic paper and wearable electronics. Electronic paper has already been field tested in rigid displays that update sale prices at department stores. A commercial prototype for a flexible version has been produced by Polymer Vision in conjunction with E Ink. Joseph Jacobson of MIT's Media Laboratory and E Ink envisions 'the last book', which could contain the contents of the Library of Congress in something the size of a binder. Cheap plastic chips may also reduce the cost of radio-frequency identification tags (RFIDs) and so increase the number of applications of RFID technology.

Another application of conductive polymers already in development is electromagnetic shielding, which could be used for antistatic protection and cloaking from radar. Static is estimated to cause $15 billion in damage annually to electronic devices. The ability to incorporate conductive polymers into everyday materials such as textiles opens up the possibility of new kinds of chemical sensors and new forms of monitoring. Clothing that could change its properties as the temperature changes is one possibility. Electronic skins that respond to pressure have been imagined for robotic hands. Conductive polymers might also provide the basis for better rechargeable batteries. Given the ubiquity of plastics and semiconductors in modern life, in the future many computing and other electronic devices will make use of the unique properties of conductive polymers.

This will be enabled by:

Competition between the LED and OLED technologies to drive down the price of OLEDs so manufacturers will make the switch
Continuing discovery of new polymers with conductive properties to give engineers more of a selection
Development of organic or hybrid chips with greater stability in reponse to environmental stresses -- temperature and humidity
Development of new production techniques, especially advances ink-jet printing of circuits

Early indicators include:

Awarding of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2000 to Alan J. Heeger, Alan G. MacDiarmid, and Hideki Shirakawa for pioneering research into conductive polymers
Publication in December 2000 of a paper by Henning Sirringhaus of Cambridge University in Science demonstrating the ability to use ink-jet technology to print high-resolution organic transistors just 5 mm apart
Introduction in 2002 by Kodak and Sanyo of a small, rigid OLED display for use in digital cameras and cell phones
Joining of forces by major manufacturers such as Dow, Motorola, and Xerox, and DuPont and Lucent Technologies, to develop new polymer inks and printing methods
Revelation in 2003 by Plastic Logic at the Society for Information Display Conference of the first plastic-electronics ink-jet-printed active-matrix display
Publication in 2004 by Vitaly Podzorov at Rutgers University and colleagues at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign of results showing that a year-long effort to remove impurities produced an organic semiconductor with 200-fold increase in speed

What to watch:

Plastic chips replace silicon chips in inexpensive appliances.
OLEDs supplant LEDs.
The global market for organic display devices grows from around $219 million to around $3 billion in the next 5 to 10 years.

Signals

Multidisciplinary astrobiology and the quest to find life beyond Earth

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 11:10:29 -0700

Description

[Revising...]

Multidisciplinary efforts by astrobiologists may increase our understanding of the origins of life on this planet and could result in finding biospheres beyond Earth.

Astrobiology, is the study of life in the universe. The field is driven by fundamental questions that have fascinated scientists and lay people for millennia: Where did we come from? Where are we going? Are we alone? Astrobiology is necessarily a multidisciplinary field, drawing from astronomy, genomics, molecular biology, information technology, geology, paleontology, chemistry, physics, astronomy, and planetary science. Through collaborative efforts among these disciplines, scientists hope to understand the origin, evolution, and distribution of life. Astrobiologists start from the assumption that only by dentifying the 'conditions necessary for life to emerge' can scientists know how and where to look for life elsewhere in the universe, especially when habitable environments may be very different from our own home.

Some scientists, notably Jack Cohen and Ian Stewart, reject the term 'astrobiology' and the whole astrobiology programme along with it. For them, talk of 'conditions necessary for life' is both parochial and unimaginative. They dismiss astrobiology as, "the science of Earthlike planets supporting Earthlike life". In place of astrobiology, they speak about 'xenobiology' -- a science that restricts itself less than astrobiology, does not presume to be able to determine the conditions necessary for life and absolutely refuses to discuss 'habitable zones' (regions around stars that are conducive to Earth-type life -- not to hot nor too cold). In general use, the terms are interchangable, but the existence of an emerging coherent field (astrobiology) and a radical opposition to the growing consensus (xenobiology) is significant.

Because scientists have yet to prove the existence of life on other planets, most astrobiology is done on Earth. For example, researchers have been surprised to find life in such extreme environments as incredibly hot volcanic vents in the deep ocean, icy Antarctic lakes, and highly acidic water. These are the kinds of environments that may harbour life elsewhere in the universe, and studying life forms that thrive there opens our eyes to the robustness and adaptability of life. The search for life in the universe continues in biology laboratories too. All life we know about has a similar biochemical basis but it is currently unknown if DNA, etc. is a necessary condition for all life, or just an 'accident' of life on Earth. Attempts to create synthetic life forms will help answer this question. Advances in theoretical biology precipitated by new mathematical approaches are also helping to set the parameters for the search for life beyond Earth.

In our own solar system, scientists have found evidence of water on both Mars and Jupiter's moon Europa. The existence of water is a necessary condition of all life we know, so locations with water may be a good place to start the search for life. In the coming decades, astrobiologists may very well determine whether life exists there or did in the past. Meanwhile, astronomers continue to discover planets outside our solar system, and one of their goals is to find Earth-like planets with chemistry conducive to life as we know it.

The NASA Astrobiology Roadmap outlines seven scientific goals that are expected to be the most fertile ground for exploration in the coming years:

Understand the nature and distribution of habitable environments in the universe
Explore for past or present habitable environments, prebiotic chemistry, and signs of life elsewhere in our solar system
Understand how life originates from cosmic and planetary precursors
Understand how past life on Earth interacted with its changing planetary and solar system environment
Understand the evolutionary mechanisms and environmental limits of life
Understand the principles that will shape the future of life, both on Earth and beyond
Determine how to recognize signatures of life on other worlds and on early Earth

This will be enabled by:

Continued fostering of multidisciplinary science projects
Renewed interest in space exploration, driven by a desire to know if there's life 'out there'
Development of new biological, chemical, and geological tools for analysing samples brought back from space and extreme environments
Development of increasingly advanced telescopes, both terrestrial and space-based
Advances in A-Life that inform theoretical biology
Development of in the laboratory of synthetic micro-organisms
Development of synthetic organisms that use a mechanism other than DNA or RNA to encode information for reproduction

Early indicators include:

1977 discovery of life in hydrothermal vents
Development by James Lovelock of the Gaia Hypothesis from an attempt to determine if there was life on Mars by studying the planet's atmosphere
Discovery of more than 150 exoplanets
Discovery of evidence of liquid water on Europa and possibly Mars
Ongoing development of plans for a manned mission to Mars before midcentury
Founding in 1998 by US NASA of the NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI), consisting of hundreds of astrobiologists at more than a dozen institutions around the US, from UC Berkeley to Pennsylvania State University to the SETI Institute
Launching of similar large-scale efforts around the world through such NASA partners as the Astrobiology Society of Britain, Australian Centre for Astrobiology, and the Centro de Astrobiologia
Founding of the International Journal of Astrobiology at Cambridge University
Development of A-life (simulated organisms that live in virtual environments)
Application of cellular automata to theoretical biology

What to watch:

New terrestrial planets like Mars and Earth are discovered.

Potential to discover extraterrestial life
Better understanding of the origins of life on Earth, past extinctions, and the possible future of life on this planet
Better understanding of the impact of space environments on human physiology and our own possible future in space
Potential for medical applications of astrobiology tools such as lab-on-a-chip and other bio-assays

Signals

Intelligent Polymers for Biomedical and Other Uses

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 11:10:29 -0700

Description

Two new types of 'intelligent' polymers may be a source of design innovation over the coming decade, especially in the biomedical field. Mass commercial applications may follow.

Advances in polymer chemistry in recent decades have led to a couple of 'intelligent' materials that are manipulable or responsive to user needs:

Electroactive polymers (EAPs) are materials that change size or shape in response to an electrical current. These polymers have been used to make motion-producing 'artificial muscle', a material that contracts in response to electric current. Artificial muscle may replace electrical motors in some applications because they may offer advantages in size, weight, and manufacturing cost. Stanford Research Institute has been a leader in the development of these new materials and has tested applications for springs, pumps, coatings, loudspeakers, and small motors. Of particular interest are biomedical applications.
Shape-memory polymers (SMPs) are materials that can remember their original shape after having been stressed. Metal alloys that have 'memory' have been known since the 1930s, but research on shape-memory polymers since the 1980s has shown them to have greater manipulability and ease of production than the equivalent alloys. These polymers can revert back to an original shape when exposed to certain temperatures or ultraviolet radiation for example.

These materials are still largely in the demonstration stage of development, but many research advances are expected in the next decade, with commercial applications coming in 10 to 20 years."

This will be enabled by:

Continuation of basic research efforts in polymer chemistry
Improvement in the strength of artificial muscles
Increased demand for specialized fabrics and coatings

Early indicators include:

"Launching in 1999 of the WorldWide ElectroActive Polymer (WW-EAP) Newsletter by Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
Mitsubishi's marketing of Diaplex, an 'intelligent' polyurethane-based fabric with pores that expand when temperatures rise, for use in cold-weather clothing and other applications
Announcement in 2003 by EAMEX, Japan, of the first commercial product using EAPs: a robotic fish selling for $100
Issuing of a patent in Sweden and Australia in January 2005 to Micromuscle AB for 'Microtools', EAPs with surgical applications
Hosting of the first arm-wrestling contest between humans and EAP-actuated robots by the annual international EAP Actuators and Devices conference in March 2005
Creation in May 2005 by Andreas Lendlein at GKSS Research Center in Teltow, Germany, of an SMP that is responsive to ultraviolet light"

What to watch:

Prototype devices and novelty applications demonstrate the unique properties of intelligent polymers during the next decade.
EAPS are used in steerable catheters during the next decade.
SMPs replace shape-memory alloys in the next 5 to 20 years.
A biomimetic robot is demonstrated in the next 10 to 20 years.