Category archives: Chemistry

From protein design to materials design

From protein design to materials design

ChemistryMaterials

By BCMaterials

A key feature that makes natural materials highly sustainable and recyclable is their modularity. Biodegradable materials are such because biological organisms can digest and break their constituting chemicals into simpler building blocks. Often such simpler building blocks are then reused for energy or structural purposes. In other words, nature needs materials that can be broken […]

Evolution of a 2D alloy throughout the metal to semiconductor transition

Evolution of a 2D alloy throughout the metal to semiconductor transition

ChemistryDIPC Advanced materialsMaterials

By DIPC

Transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) are layered compounds which can be thinned down to the single-layer limit. While mechanical exfoliation generates atomically thin TMD flakes possessing an area of a few square microns, chemical and physical methods provide high-quality monolayers on large-area substrates, which are suitable for actual technological applications. TMDs are a class of van […]

Lanthanide-lanthanide bonding as the basis of next-generation powerful permanent magnets

Lanthanide-lanthanide bonding as the basis of next-generation powerful permanent magnets

ChemistryDIPC Computational and Theoretical ChemistryMaterials

By DIPC

If we are asked what a metal is, most likely we would think almost automatically in those elements that we see as lustrous solids, good conductors of heat and electricity, that tend to form positive ions, and with a particular chemical bond that keep metal atoms in place, the metallic bond. And all of this […]

Highly ordered nanothread products using heteroatoms

Highly ordered nanothread products using heteroatoms

ChemistryDIPC Computational and Theoretical ChemistryMaterials

By DIPC

Nanothreads are one-dimensional nanomaterials composed of a primarily sp 3 hydrocarbon backbone, typically formed through the compression of small molecules to high pressures. In 2015, it was found that the slow room-temperature compression of benzene produced crystalline , one-dimensional polymers composed of diamond-like bonds. These diamondoid materials that border nanotubes and polymers are predicted to […]

Heavy-atom-free triplet sensitizers with predictable properties

Heavy-atom-free triplet sensitizers with predictable properties

ChemistryDIPC Computational and Theoretical Chemistry

By DIPC

An atomic state in which two spin angular momenta of electrons cancel each other, resulting in zero net spin, is called a singlet. If the angular momenta combine to give a total non-zero spin, then that state is called a triplet. A triplet state usually has lower, sometimes substantially lower, energy than a singlet. Importantly […]

Carbon nanotubes as shields to enhance photocatalysis

Carbon nanotubes as shields to enhance photocatalysis

ChemistryMaterials

By Invited Researcher

We live in a time when scientific applications are growing by leaps and bounds. This exponential growth has been possible, among other tools, thanks to the application of nanotechnology. There is something that nanotechnology has taught us: In science, size matters. When studying matter at nanometric levels, we find that the properties are completely different […]

A hydrogel matrix as viable solution for the efficient catalytic activation and delivery of cisplatin

A hydrogel matrix as viable solution for the efficient catalytic activation and delivery of cisplatin

ChemistryDIPC PhotochemistryPharmacy

By DIPC

Catalysis-based approaches for the activation of anticancer rely on the use of metal catalysts capable of deprotecting inactive precursors of organic drugs or transforming key biomolecules available in the cellular environment. Nevertheless, the efficiency of most of the schemes described so far is rather low, limiting the benefits of catalytic amplification as a strategy for […]