Adventures in Chemistry at Durham University
Lead Research Organisation:
Durham University
Department Name: Chemistry
Abstract
Adventurous science is particularly difficult to define. It is very likely to give some fantastic new result, but at the same time it is also quite likely to not work. We're going to try three different projects:Project 1: Sorting Carbon Nanotubes by Flow Cytometry Carbon nanotubes are extremely small/about 50,000 times smaller than the thickness of a human hair. They are hollow cylinders made only of carbon atoms that look like rolled up sheets of 'chicken wire'. Sometimes they behave like metals and conduct electricity, other times they behave like electronic components such as transistors. In future we may be able to make electronic systems where all the components, from wires to transistors, are made from carbon. The real advantage is that these new carbon systems could be much faster and smaller than existing electronic systems that are currently made from silicon. The problem is that when carbon nanotubes are prepared the material contains a mixture of metallic and transistor-like particles which are virtually impossible to separate. We are going to use a machine that looks at nanotubes as they flow past a detector and depending on those properties the machine will sort them into different containers. Once we have separated these particles we hope to be able to create a new type of carbon-based electronics.Project 2: A New Source for Ultra-Cold Molecules Quantum computers harness the power of atoms and molecules to perform memory and processing tasks and have the potential to perform certain calculations billions of times faster than any silicon-based computer. The critical ingredient is quantum matter which is made by cooling molecules to ultra-cold temperatures. Molecular Bose-Einstein condensates (MBECs), where molecules have been cooled to these very low temperatures have never been prepared before. We will try to shoot dead the motions of certain molecules using a laser of a particular colour. We shall do this is by firing the laser into a beam of supersonic molecules and leave some of the resulting fragments with effectively zero motion. Project 3 Link NMR and Molecular Dynamics Molecules in the solid state interact with each other and this has a great influence on the physical properties of the substance (e.g. the solubility and hence biological activity of drugs). Solid-state Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) experiments tell us that molecules are in motion, but they do not tell us about how they move. At present computer calculations do not help because they cannot cope with the relatively slow processes that are typical for solids, and this is the problem that we wish to solve.
Organisations
Publications
Ilott AJ
(2010)
Elucidation of structure and dynamics in solid octafluoronaphthalene from combined NMR, diffraction, and molecular dynamics studies.
in Journal of the American Chemical Society
Trottier A
(2011)
Photostop: production of zero-velocity molecules by photodissociation in a molecular beam
in Molecular Physics
Ilott AJ
(2011)
Structural properties of carboxylic acid dimers confined within the urea tunnel structure: an MD simulation study.
in The journal of physical chemistry. B
Slim HA
(2008)
Toward Large Scale Parallelization for Molecular Dynamics of Small Chemical Systems: A Combined Parallel Tempering and Domain Decomposition Approach.
in Journal of chemical theory and computation
Ilott AJ
(2013)
Well-tempered metadynamics as a tool for characterizing multi-component, crystalline molecular machines.
in The journal of physical chemistry. B
Description | Adventurous science is particularly difficult to define. It is very likely to give some fantastic new result, but at the same time it is also quite likely to not work. The following were investigated: Project 1: "Sorting Carbon Nanotubes by Flow Cytometry" Carbon nanotubes are extremely small/about 50,000 times smaller than the thickness of a human hair. They are hollow cylinders made only of carbon atoms that look like rolled up sheets of 'chicken wire'. Sometimes they behave like metals and conduct electricity, other times they behave like electronic components such as transistors. In future we may be able to make electronic systems where all the components, from wires to transistors, are made from carbon. The real advantage is that these new carbon systems could be much faster and smaller than existing electronic systems that are currently made from silicon. The problem is that when carbon nanotubes are prepared the material contains a mixture of metallic and transistor-like particles which are virtually impossible to separate. We are going to use a machine that looks at nanotubes as they flow past a detector and depending on those properties the machine will sort them into different containers. Once we have separated these particles we hope to be able to create a new type of carbon-based electronics. Whilst it was not possible to completely separate the semiconducting from the metallic nanotubes during the project we were able to detect the different nanotubes using the flow cytometer and enrich the semiconducting nanotubes over the metallic. In addition to the project, we were able to disperse carbon nanotubes in aqueous media, using modified poly(acrylic acid), and deliver the material across cell membranes the results of which will be communicated shortly. Project 2: "A New Source for Ultra-Cold Molecules" Quantum computers harness the power of atoms and molecules to perform memory and processing tasks and have the potential to perform certain calculations billions of times faster than any silicon-based computer. The critical ingredient is "quantum matter" which is made by cooling molecules to ultra-cold temperatures. Molecular Bose-Einstein condensates (MBECs), where molecules have been cooled to these very low temperatures have never been prepared before. We will try to "shoot dead" the motions of certain molecules using a laser of a particular colour. We shall do this is by firing the laser into a beam of supersonic molecules and leave some of the resulting fragments with effectively zero motion. Overall the experiment was successful. We have stopped NO molecules and detected them at standstill. A publication is in preparation. Project 3 "Link NMR and Molecular Dynamics" Molecules in the solid state interact with each other and this has a great influence on the physical properties of the substance (e.g. the solubility and hence biological activity of drugs). Solid-state Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) experiments tell us that molecules are in motion, but they do not tell us about how they move. Molecular simulations are often of no help because they cannot cope with the relatively slow processes that are typical for solids. This project has helped to solve this problem by using new simulation methods designed to "see long time-scale events". We have used these to help identify the origin of a number of "slow" process in solids. The combined methodology extends the capability of solid state NMR as an analytical tool. |
Sectors | Chemicals Other |