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Chemistry News

• How Handedness Arises

  How Handedness Arises UCLA chemists solved a molecular mystery, and report the discovery in the journal Nature Communications. Image: Achiral triangles form chiral super-structures. Colored patches represent parallelogram outlines around pairs of triangles that have formed chiral super-structures. Parallelograms having different 'handedness' and orientations are color-coded and superimposed over each other. [Credit: Thomas G. Mason and Kun Zhao]

• Ultrasmall Cadmium Selenide Nanocrystals Brighten the Future of Lighting

  Ultrasmall Cadmium Selenide Nanocrystals Brighten the Future of Lighting Vanderbilt researchers have boosted the efficiency of a novel source of white light called quantum dots more than tenfold, making them of potential interest for commercial applications. Image: Enhanced and original white light quantum dots. Pictured is a vial holding original white-light quantum dots on the left and a vial holding the enhanced quantum dots on the right. [Credit: Rosenthal Lab]

• Catalytic Production of Renewable Xylene

  Catalytic Production of Renewable Xylene Chemical engineers at UMass Amherst find high-yield method of making p-xylene from biomass. Image: Reasearchers investigated a renewable route to p-xylene from biomass-derived dimethylfuran and ethylene with zeolite catalysts. Cycloaddition of ethylene and 2,5-dimethylfuran and subsequent dehydration to p-xylene has been achieved with 75% selectivity using a H-Y zeolite and an aliphatic solvent at 300 �C. [Credit: University of Massachusetts, Amherst]

• A New Nanotube-based Chemoresistive Sensor for Ethylene

  A New Nanotube-based Chemoresistive Sensor for Ethylene Comparing apples and oranges: New sensor can accurately measure fruits' ripeness, helping prevent loss of produce from spoilage. Image: The selective detection of ethylene gas using a carbon nanotube-based devices is described in the journal Angewandte Chemie. [Credit: MIT]

• A New Technique that will Transform Epigenetics Research

  A New Technique that will Transform Epigenetics Research Scientists at the University of Cambridge and the Babraham Institute have demonstrated a new technique that will transform epigenetics research: The quantitative sequencing of 5-methylcytosine and 5-hydroxymethylcytosine at single-base resolution. Image: The centre of the diagram shows levels of 5mC and 5hmC chemical modifications along a chromosome (section of DNA). The cycle illustrates that after addition to DNA, 5mC (blue) can be converted to 5hmC (red) and then subsequently removed. [Credit: Miguel Branco]