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A New Kind of Chemistry
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"
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).
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Just one step closer to the transparent aluminum whale-aquarium.
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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.
Ben Hocking
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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
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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!
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> 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
Pros:
Cons:
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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 moniker to be inappropriate.
Ben Hocking
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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.
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... some guys have invented "emulation mode" for atoms. I expect their project should have an Alpha release, soon... ;)
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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 aluminum atom naturally -- wouldn't it decompose and break off into I2, lowest energy form? What keeps the iodine attached to the single aluminum atom? It's not the usual ionic forces, and definitely not a covalent force. Aluminum has 13 electrons (correct me if I'm wrong,) so theoretically it could have a +13 charge, so I guess you can attach 13 iodine atoms with a -1 charge, but would that require A LOT of energy to remove all those electrons? Gah. I'm a first-year Chem major, and this is puzzling the hell out of me.
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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.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
Al_{13} is stable with an even number of iodine atoms and reactive with an odd number of iodine atoms, whereas Al_{14} is stable with an odd number of iodine atoms (or at least with 3 iodine atoms)? That is probably the best way to explain what seemed liked a contradiction to me. Thanks for the input. This then leads me to wonder if one could generalize this to odd(AL)-even(I) is stable and even(AL)-odd(I) is stable, although clearly this is just a question and doesn't even qualify as a hypothesis.
As an aside, I wish /. would support <sub> and <sup> or recognize TeX formatting.
Ben Hocking
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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!
Has anyone seen the book "Hacking Matter: Levitating Chairs, Quantum Mirages, and the Infinite Weirdness of Programmable Atoms" by Wil McCarthy?
Basicaly, using quantum structures to shape electron clouds independent of proton count. I sat stunned looking at the periodic table of the first dozen elements of 'two dimensional atoms' created via quantum wells.
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 from where they were).
;)
Now, if you got anything from that, help me find a picture, and I'm sure you'll understand what I mean.. Maybe we're not far from those "hybrid-elements" that they use on an every day basis
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