alCHEMISTS

Chemists at Princeton are taking an approach to chemistry that seems a little similar to the age old art of Alchemy. No, they are not turning lead to gold, but they are using iron instead of platinum for the same catalytic processes. 

Catalysts, such as platinum, are used in reactions to speed them up without loosing any of the catalyst in the process; unfortunately this is not always the case. As the reaction occurs trace amounts of the catalyst are lost, which is problematic for a chemical as rare as platinum, as its price is very high. Thus, recently, synthetic forms of the catalyst have been produced by using iron. Iron is much less precious than platinum and loosing iron in a reaction is not as cost worthy. This "synthetic form of Platinum" may result in the discovery of new types catalysts that work even better than ones that are being used today and might also cost less. This process of using cheaper catalysts could help companies all over stay away from the scarce elements. Beer, denim, fuel cells, makeup, pharmaceuticals, cookware, glue and many other products all currently use rare transition materials in manufacturing. So if cheaper metal catalysts could be mass produced, they would have an instant and direct impact on the market.

Here is a picture of the platinum and iron catalyst developed by Princeton University Professor Paul Chirik:

As you can see, the bottom catalyst only requires one iron molecule, while the above catalyst requires two platinum molecules. The iron catalyst presents a combination of economy, beauty, and effectiveness that cannot be beaten by the platinum catalyst. Thus, the price reduction begins at the molecular level, which brings up an interesting connection between chemistry and the economy--every single atom and molecule can be thought of as money spent, and if the structure of the molecule is not as efficient and parsimonious as possible, the greater money spent.

 

Making Hydrogen

Interestingly, we came upon this journal article in which hydrogen production using transition metal catalysts was explored. A group of scientists in Illinois combined what us BCA kids learned in biology, with some transition metal catalysis to develop a process of making hydrogen from water. They used a Photosystem 1 Protein with a Cobalt catalyst to make a complex that produced hydrogen in an aqueous solution when exposed to visible light. As we all should know from biology, cough cough, Photosystem 1 is an integral part of photosynthesis, particularly in the light sensitive reactions that make NADPH and ATP. It turns out that a Photosystem 1 protein self-assembles with Co(dmgH)2pyCl, a well known hydrogen electrocatalyst, to make a useful complex. The two work together to make hydrogen; the Photosystem 1 protein gives two photo-generated electrons to the attached catalyst, which then uses the electrons to make a hydrogen molecule. Here is a picture that summarizes the findings of the group of scientists.

 

Figure A is the catalyst that I just told you about. Figure B is a picture of the hydrogen bubbling out of solution.  The graph shows mols of hydrogen/mols of photosystem 1 protein over time. The data seems to show a that hydrogen production slows down over time.
This article seems to be shouting for a parallel to subjects of biology and chemistry as a whole. If biology and chemistry can work together so well on a molecular scale, why can't they work together on a larger scale? The above article is a clear supporter of the notion that all fields of science require the help of each other and one field does not completely cover another.

Transitioning

Hi all,

As you might have realized, this blog is centered on intellectual discussion on transition metal catalysis. For now, we are focusing on the entire field, but expect some further narrowing-down in the future. We hope to make this blog a platform for healthy discussions and debates on transition metal catalysis, as it is of great importance to us as individuals and to the world as a whole. Follow us on twitter to be up to date on blog posts and other interesting comments. As you can notice from the title of this post, this blog is new and will take time to transition into a full-fledged one. But with the help of our followers, we hope this blog gets off an running soon.

Sincerely,

Advanced Chem Red 5