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Student creates powerful catalyst from potassium

phys.org

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Re: Student creates powerful catalyst from potassium

#11

Post by simcop2387 »

subnaught wrote: post #7
iaw wrote: post #2

Does anyone have insight into what type of silicon product they were creating and it's usefulness (if any)? I'm not sure if I missed it in the article or if it just wasn't there.

An organosilane is basically any molecule with a Si-C bond. This reaction step creates the Si-C bond, so you could (in theory) use it to prepare any organosilane by starting with the correct Si- and C- containing fragments. Organosilanes currently find wide use in industry as hydrophobic coatings, adhesion promoters, and as useful intermediates in drug synthesis. It's a little hard to describe just how unbelievable t…

Don't know if you were thinking of this with your reference, but you CAN use your hard drive as a microprocessor, even a whole new computer!

https://spritesmods.com/?art=hddhack

Re: Student creates powerful catalyst from potassium

#12

Post by [deleted] »

subnaught wrote: post #7
iaw wrote: post #2

Does anyone have insight into what type of silicon product they were creating and it's usefulness (if any)? I'm not sure if I missed it in the article or if it just wasn't there.

An organosilane is basically any molecule with a Si-C bond. This reaction step creates the Si-C bond, so you could (in theory) use it to prepare any organosilane by starting with the correct Si- and C- containing fragments. Organosilanes currently find wide use in industry as hydrophobic coatings, adhesion promoters, and as useful intermediates in drug synthesis. It's a little hard to describe just how unbelievable t…

[deleted]

Re: Student creates powerful catalyst from potassium

#13

Post by jedharris »

The read cube link doesn't work for me.

I kind of get the weirdness of the result and the usefulness of silanes. But nothing explains what you have to do with potassium tert-butoxide to get this to work. That may be why some comments remark on the irritation -- no specifics.

If I could access the paper I probably still could not understand the process but maybe someone could translate it into lay speak.

Also the potential for new chemistry seems extremely interesting but again the specifics are missing. I guess we are talking about the same old quantum mechanics, so what would be new -- some larger scale effect that no one every realized was implied by the physics? Or what?

Re: Student creates powerful catalyst from potassium

#14

Post by jedharris »

jedharris wrote: post #13

The read cube link doesn't work for me. I kind of get the weirdness of the result and the usefulness of silanes. But nothing explains what you have to do with potassium tert-butoxide to get this to work. That may be why some comments remark on the irritation -- no specifics. If I could access the paper I probably still could not understand the process but maybe someone could translate it into lay speak. Also the pote…

The interviews are helpful but only deepen the mystery. They say that the reactions are so easy they can be carried out at room temperature in introductory college chemistry (albeit at Cal Tech). And potassium tert-butoxide is apparently cheap and common.

So what exactly did this team discover? Apparently the basic recipe can be varied to cover a huge range of applications. What are the key new ideas common to all these recipes that make them work?

Re: Student creates powerful catalyst from potassium

#15

Post by jedharris »

jedharris wrote: post #13

The read cube link doesn't work for me. I kind of get the weirdness of the result and the usefulness of silanes. But nothing explains what you have to do with potassium tert-butoxide to get this to work. That may be why some comments remark on the irritation -- no specifics. If I could access the paper I probably still could not understand the process but maybe someone could translate it into lay speak. Also the pote…

OK, found a library with the subscription, and the key sentence in the paper seems to be:

We observed that the combination of a bulky basic anion (that is, Ot-Bu, trimethylsilanolate or bis(trimethylsilyl)amide) and, importantly, a potassium countercation led to the desired C–Si bond formation.

But I don't understand it at all. Lay speak translation needed.

Re: Student creates powerful catalyst from potassium

#16

Post by subnaught »

jedharris wrote: post #14
jedharris wrote: post #13

The read cube link doesn't work for me. I kind of get the weirdness of the result and the usefulness of silanes. But nothing explains what you have to do with potassium tert-butoxide to get this to work. That may be why some comments remark on the irritation -- no specifics. If I could access the paper I probably still could not understand the process but maybe someone could translate it into lay speak. Also the pote…

The interviews are helpful but only deepen the mystery. They say that the reactions are so easy they can be carried out at room temperature in introductory college chemistry (albeit at Cal Tech). And potassium tert-butoxide is apparently cheap and common. So what exactly did this team discover? Apparently the basic recipe can be varied to cover a huge range of applications. What are the key new ideas common to all th…

To answer the previous comment, there is no special preparation of the potassium t-butoxide necessary. The reaction itself is indeed quite simple to carry out. (In fact, this is one of the things that makes the research significant.) The achievement of the researchers was simply to find this reaction, which they did in part by paying attention to some early results that others may have not noticed or chosen to ignore.

Right now, the "key new idea" is simply that this is possible. But because the reaction is so general (i.e. it works on a wide variety of substrates) and so unexpected, it's clear that some new unifying ideas are just around the corner.

Re: Student creates powerful catalyst from potassium

#17

Post by ars »

subnaught wrote: post #6
ars wrote: post #3

What an incredibly irritating article to read. Can someone find a more normal article on this, that just says what the catalyst does, and leaves out the "birthing story" and other nonsense.

I didn't find it irritating at all, but perhaps you would prefer this article: http://phys.org/news/2015-02-cheap-abundant-chemical-outperf...

Thank you!

The article is so much better I'm stunned that both are located on the same website.

It's like finding kindergarten stories and college age stores in the same book.

Re: Student creates powerful catalyst from potassium

#18

Post by jedharris »

subnaught wrote: post #16
jedharris wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The interviews are helpful but only deepen the mystery. They say that the reactions are so easy they can be carried out at room temperature in introductory college chemistry (albeit at Cal Tech). And potassium tert-butoxide is apparently cheap and common. So what exactly did this team discover? Apparently the basic recipe can be varied to cover a huge range of applications. What are the key new ideas common to all th…

To answer the previous comment, there is no special preparation of the potassium t-butoxide necessary. The reaction itself is indeed quite simple to carry out. (In fact, this is one of the things that makes the research significant.) The achievement of the researchers was simply to find this reaction, which they did in part by paying attention to some early results that others may have not noticed or chosen to ignore…

Not being a bench chemist I have no sense of what "the reaction" is, even looking at the paper. Could you describe it?

Re: Student creates powerful catalyst from potassium

#19

Post by [deleted] »

jedharris wrote: post #15
jedharris wrote: post #13

The read cube link doesn't work for me. I kind of get the weirdness of the result and the usefulness of silanes. But nothing explains what you have to do with potassium tert-butoxide to get this to work. That may be why some comments remark on the irritation -- no specifics. If I could access the paper I probably still could not understand the process but maybe someone could translate it into lay speak. Also the pote…

OK, found a library with the subscription, and the key sentence in the paper seems to be: We observed that the combination of a bulky basic anion (that is, Ot-Bu, trimethylsilanolate or bis(trimethylsilyl)amide) and, importantly, a potassium countercation led to the desired C–Si bond formation. But I don't understand it at all. Lay speak translation needed.

[deleted]

Re: Student creates powerful catalyst from potassium

#20

Post by sitharus »

ars wrote: post #17
subnaught wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't find it irritating at all, but perhaps you would prefer this article: http://phys.org/news/2015-02-cheap-abundant-chemical-outperf...

Thank you! The article is so much better I'm stunned that both are located on the same website. It's like finding kindergarten stories and college age stores in the same book.

Not really, more like finding both in the same book store. Different audiences like different formats, so if you can have both you get more viewers.

Personally I hate the narrative form of news reporting, I like just the facts.

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