All articles tagged with #chemical properties
Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have successfully analyzed the chemical properties of Promethium, a rare earth metal first discovered in 1945, using a new technique to create a pure isotope. This breakthrough enhances understanding of lanthanide elements and could improve methods for separating and utilizing these metals in advanced technologies.
Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have successfully characterized the rare element promethium in solution for the first time, revealing its chemical properties and contributing to the understanding of lanthanide contraction. This breakthrough, published in Nature, fills a significant gap in the study of lanthanides and aids in the separation of these valuable elements for advanced technologies.
Researchers at Kyoto University have discovered that flat fragments of spherical molecules composed entirely of carbon atoms, called fullerenes, have stable electron-accepting ability with great practical potential. The team focused on the influence of the pentagonal substructures and designed and synthesized flattened fragments of fullerene, which surprisingly retained and even enhanced some key chemical properties. The fragments display enhanced absorbance of ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared light compared to fullerene itself, which might open new possibilities in photochemistry. The team will now explore the possibilities their flat fullerene fragments hold in the vast variety of applications associated with electron-transfer processes.
A recent study by Tolulope M. Ajayi and colleagues demonstrates how Scanning Tunneling Microscopes (STMs) and X-ray spectroscopy can be combined to characterize singular atoms. The researchers synthesized supramolecular complexes that could hold the atom under investigation in place and away from atoms of the same species, allowing the atom to be identified using SX-STM. This method provides a very efficient way to get a detailed overview of an atom's properties, and in future studies, researchers hope to use polarized X-rays to obtain information about an atom's spin state, opening interesting possibilities in areas such as spintronics and memory technologies.