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Chemistry comes out of the closet

Chemists are fed up with the not very positive image that their discipline has among society at large. Therefore, the 2011 International Year of Chemistry sets out to improve the reputation of a scientific field that is expected to provide important advances in the future

ÀNNIA MONREAL | JANUARY 17th, 2011

"Chemistry is the poor cousin of the natural sciences”, Jan Piotrowski, online editor of The Economist magazine, recently wrote. “It occupies a modest space between physics and biology (...) and it lacks luxury toys like the Large Hadron Collider or high-profile initiatives like the Human Genome Project. This means that chemists are sometimes dismissed as mere laborers, translators of the ideas of physicists or the instruments of their brother biologists”. Piotrowski recalled that 2011, besides being the International Year of Chemistry, will also see the 350th anniversary of the publication of The Skeptical Chymist, Robert Boyle's work that marked the birth of modern chemistry.

Augustín Lledós, professor of physical chemistry at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, agrees that Chemistry needs a public relations boost. A quick glance at the Internet finds the most standard definition of “chemistry” is the sexual attraction between two people, while the man on the street most commonly associates the field of Chemistry with “poison”, said Lledós. “Marketing has managed to link chemical products to an unhealthy and unnatural lifestyle, something which is absolutely false. Everything is chemistry!" he said. "We want to clean up the image of Chemistry and to promote its interest among young people”.

"Chemists are playing and will play a key role in overcoming the world’s current problems", said Romano Tablón, president of the Catalan Chemistry Society (SCQ). Under the slogan "our life, our future", Unesco and the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) are the promoters of the International Year of Chemistry, which began its celebration in Catalonia last week at the Institute of Catalan Studies.

"We are living the best years of Chemistry", said Lledós. "Never have there been so many opportunities and so much research being done. We are like Physics in 1910 or Biology in 1950". He continued: "lately, there have been some key breakthroughs that open the doors to new possibilities: we have new scales that allow us to manipulate, combine and see elements on an atomic scale; we are beginning to dominate the assembly of molecules to make larger objects; we have overcome the barriers between theoretical chemistry and experimental chemistry; and we are developing new experimental techniques that are proving to be very productive”.

The present and the future of Chemistry are interdisciplinary The present and the future of Chemistry are interdisciplinary, according to Lledós. "We need new approaches to meet new challenges", he said. "Chemistry is on the border with other scientific disciplines, and I think it is the leading science. This is how new disciplines like nanotechnology were born and this is the way forward for research. Accumulating answers provides more knowledge".

There is no doubt that Chemistry has helped to improve the quality of life in the 20^th and 21^st centuries. But Chemistry’s public image has not always done it justice. Perhaps it is because problems like oil spills, and their subsequent environment damage, have been overestimated. "The problems caused by Chemistry must be corrected, but we cannot forget all the good it has brought", said Lledós.

Chemistry is a science of its time, and environmental awareness has also found its space. "The leading countries in chemical research are investing hundreds of thousands of dollars to develop a more sustainable Chemistry," he said. Lledós identified three areas Chemistry will help to move forward: understanding biological processes, transforming how we generate, deliver and use energy, and finding more sustainable methods of extracting materials from the Earth.

Lledós considers that the cell is “the most complex chemical reactor". Advances in biochemistry can provide answers to the origin of life, "an unresolved problem,” in his words. On energy, the scientist is convinced that methane gas, carbon dioxide and biomass should be exploited to reformulate the current Chemistry, based on oil. "Methane and carbon dioxide are better energy sources than oil. They have more carbon and more hydrogen than oil." Finally, he argued for a commitment to "a new production of objects that are not harmful to the planet".

AN ATTRACTIVE SCIENCE
One of the objectives of International Year of Chemistry is the promotion and dissemination of Chemistry among young people. One of the first steps that the Catalan Chemistry Society in this regard was the publication of a calendar "made by and directed to young people", said Pilar González Duarte, a member of the Section of Science and Technology of the Institute of Catalan Studies. This is a calendar that links diverse objects that share common chemical elements like, for example, aluminum, which is present in the fuselage of aircrafts and deodorants. To prepare the calendar, "443 proposals from high school to postdoctoral students" were considered and 12 were selected for each month of the year, Gonzalez Duarte said.
"We want to talk about the chemistry of living things, that which allows us to move forward, of our environment, and thus to encourage young people to continue a long and often hard path," Gonzalez Duarte said. Chemistry studies in Catalonia do not experience the same lack of resources as other degrees like engineering, but Lledós currently recognizes the future is a bit complicated, despite the good prospects: "The chemical industry is now having a difficult time with layoffs and relocations abroad. Chemistry has been losing appeal among young people to the benefit of biology".
However, the future is not entirely gray. The recently published study of bibliometric indicators of scientific activity in Catalonia (2003-2008) placed chemical research as one of the leading sectors in the autonomous community.

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