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Science for presidents

science for presidents

Analytical Chemistry

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Chemistry’s multidisciplinary future

Chemistry is found everywhere, but also due its ubiquity its image is often blurred. Its future advances will hinge on its relationship with other disciplines, experts say. Ever since James Watson, discoverer of DNA’s double helix structure, said "Life is just a matter of chemistry," the study of the structure and characteristics of substances has entered fully into biology just as “green chemistry” has erupted into the arena of the creation of compounds. These are just two examples of where the field of chemistry is heading, according to experts.

MALÉN RUIZ DE ELVIRA | AUGUST 3, 2010


A major event, the 42nd International Chemistry Olympiad, was held recently in Japan and counted on the participation of students from 70 countries. Ryoji Noyori, the 2001 Nobel prize winner in Chemistry, greeted the attendees at the Olympiad with the following words that can not better sum up the discipline he has devoted his life to: “The importance of chemistry can not be overstated; it is closely related to other disciplines and brings us, through the chemical industry, advanced products that enrich our daily lives. Students who come to the Olympiad have undoubtedly been attracted by the beauty of chemistry, by its logic and its ability to create and convert material and the potential it has to discover the secrets that nature has not yet revealed.”

The communication and dissemination of chemistry’s achievements has also modernized with the times. An example is the new website Chemistry Views, which aims to serve the chemical community in all its diversity. It was created by publishing houses ChemPubSocEurope and Wiley VCH. This partnership, founded in 1997 and which includes 16 European Chemistry Societies, recently organized in Paris the symposium “Frontiers in Chemistry,” attended by 600 participants, on the tenth anniversary of the two science journals. Among the 10 speakers, there were four Nobel laureates, including the latest winner, the Israeli Ada Yonath. All the presentations could be followed live via the event’s website and remain available to all those interested. The symposium tackled future issues in areas such as heterogeneous catalysis, biological structures, supramolecular chemistry, solar cells and nano materials, among others.
The communication and dissemination of chemistry’s achievements has also modernized with the times
Furthermore, Nature Chemistry, the influential journal publishes by Nature, has already celebrated its first birthday with positive results, according to its publishers, and has also called for leading experts to give their predictions for the future of the field.

Futures for Chemistry

Noyori, for example, as an expert in synthesis, believes that scientists may soon unravel the chemical mechanisms of cellular functions and perhaps also those of human thought and memory. The Nobel prize winner explained that, although chemical synthesis has reached an extraordinary level of progress, there is still much room for improvement and advocates that this line of research be based on the “practical elegance”, i.e. “that it must be logically elegant but at the same time lead to practical applications.” He also claims that catalysis is, and will continue to be, one of the most important research areas because it is the only rational way to produce compounds cheaply, with lows amounts of energy and without harming the environment.

An important part of chemical research efforts focuses on how to use the sun's energy to extract hydrogen from water and use it as fuel in fuel cells. At Caltech in the U.S., researchers are developing fuel cells that rely on the absorption of light from different regions of the solar spectrum via anodes and cathodes, both of nanometric dimensions. Although researchers do not believe that these plants will be available till 2050, the advantages of such a system are such that you can not stop working on it. “The central coastal metropolitan areas could use sea water as a source of hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen produced could be used at the power plant and pure water obtained as a byproduct could go directly to the potable water system,” said Harry B. Gray.

Sustainable Chemistry

Sustainable chemistry is the great obsession of the moment, but the so-called “green chemistry” already has a history dating back to the final decade of the last century and has steadily developed with support from European Union programs like Reach. For the immediate future, James H. Clark, of York University, calls for more research into the only carbon-based energy source that is both sustainable and practical: non-food biomass. But he also argues for the recycling of waste electrical and electronic equipment, which pose a growing problem in developed societies.

An imaginative use of cellulose, starch and other ingredients of biomass as a source not only of small molecules but also of the “bricks” of new macromolecular materials (such as truly biodegradable plastics) would reduce our dependence on compounds derived from oil. Research is particularly urgent in applications related to plastics and adhesives. “This new century will see a gradual transfer of petroleum-based chemistry to chemistry based on a variety of crops,” said Gray, who believes that today’s trash will be the tomorrow’s resources.

A NEW ROLE FOR METALS

Experts do not forget, when planning the future, the new instruments chemistry is developing. As Humphry Davy said in the nineteenth century: “Nothing encourages good science like the development of a good instrument.” For a number of years it has been possible to measure individual atoms or molecules, but much remains to be done. According to Gary M. Hieftje, an American expert, the area of metallomics, which studies the presence and role of metal ions in biological systems and furthers the development of new analytical methods, is particularly interesting. Metals are an important part of the mechanisms of life (associated with proteins, for example), which, as Watson said, are essentially chemical.

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