Discovery of New Family of Pseudo-Metallic Chemicals
Changes
How Scientists Fight Disease, Create Electronic
Materials.
The periodic table of elements, all 111 of them, just got a little
competition. A new discovery by a University of Missouri-Columbia
research team, published in Angewandte Chemie, the journal of the
German Society of Chemists, allows scientists to manipulate a molecule
discovered 50 years ago in such as way as to give the molecule
metal-like properties, creating a new, "pseudo" element. The
pseudo-metal properties can be adjusted for a wide range of uses and
might change the way scientists think about attacking disease or even
building electronics.
Five decades ago, Fred Hawthorne, professor of radiology and director
of the International Institute for Nano and Molecular Medicine at MU,
discovered an extremely stable molecule consisting of 12 boron atoms
and 12 hydrogen atoms. Known as "boron cages," these molecules were
difficult to change or manipulate, and sat dormant in Hawthorne's
laboratory for many years.
Recently, Hawthorne's scientific team found a way to modify these
cages, resulting in a large, new family of nano-sized compounds. In
their study, which was published this month, Hawthorne, and Mark Lee,
assistant professor at the institute and first author of the study,
found that attaching different compounds to the cages gave them the
properties of many different metals.
"Since the range of properties for these pseudo-metals is quite large,
they might be referred to as 'psuedo-elements belonging to a
completely new pseudo-periodic table,'" Lee said.
Potential applications of this discovery are abundant, especially in
medicine.
"All living organisms are essentially a grand concert of chemical
reactions involving the transfer of electrons between molecules and
metals," Lee said. "The electron transfer properties of this new
family of molecules span the entire range of those found within living
systems. Because of this, these pseudo-metals may be tuned for use as
specific probes in living systems to detect or treat disease at the
earliest state."
In addition, because the compounds possess such a wide range of
flexibility, they might have ramifications for nanotechnology and
various kinds of electronics.
"This single discovery could open entirely new fields of study because
of the controlled variability of the compounds," Lee said. "We have
the ability to change the properties of these pseudo-metals, which
gives us the opportunity to tailor them to our needs, whether that is
biomedical, chemical or electronic applications, some of which may
utilize nanoscience."
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