Tag Archives: Louis Pasteur

“One minus one equals zero” has been disproved

Two mirror-image molecules can be optically active according to an April 27, 2016 news item on ScienceDaily,

In 1848, Louis Pasteur showed that molecules that are mirror images of each other had exactly opposite rotations of light. When mixed in solution, they cancel the effects of the other, and no rotation of light is observed. Now, a research team has demonstrated that a mixture of mirror-image molecules crystallized in the solid state can be optically active.

An April 26, 2016 Northwestern University news release (also on EurekAlert), which originated the news item, expands on the theme,

In the world of chemistry, one minus one almost always equals zero.

But new research from Northwestern University and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in France shows that is not always the case. And the discovery will change scientists’ understanding of mirror-image molecules and their optical activity.

Now, Northwestern’s Kenneth R. Poeppelmeier and his research team are the first to demonstrate that a mixture of mirror-image molecules crystallized in the solid state can be optically active. The scientists first designed and made the materials and then measured their optical properties.

“In our case, one minus one does not always equal zero,” said first author Romain Gautier of CNRS. “This discovery will change scientists’ understanding of these molecules, and new applications could emerge from this observation.”

The property of rotating light, which has been known for more than two centuries to exist in many molecules, already has many applications in medicine, electronics, lasers and display devices.

“The phenomenon of optical activity can occur in a mixture of mirror-image molecules, and now we’ve measured it,” said Poeppelmeier, a Morrison Professor of Chemistry in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. “This is an important experiment.”

Although this phenomenon has been predicted for a long time, no one — until now — had created such a racemic mixture (a combination of equal amounts of mirror-image molecules) and measured the optical activity.

“How do you deliberately create these materials?” Poeppelmeier said. “That’s what excites me as a chemist.” He and Gautier painstakingly designed the material, using one of four possible solid-state arrangements known to exhibit circular dichroism (the ability to absorb differently the “rotated” light).

Next, Richard P. Van Duyne, a Morrison Professor of Chemistry at Northwestern, and graduate student Jordan M. Klingsporn measured the material’s optical activity, finding that mirror-image molecules are active when arranged in specific orientations in the solid state.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Optical activity from racemates by Romain Gautier, Jordan M. Klingsporn, Richard P. Van Duyne, & Kenneth R. Poeppelmeier. Nature Materials (2016) doi:10.1038/nmat4628 Published online 18 April 2016

This paper is behind a paywall.

Algae factories could produce nanocellulose for biofuels and more

The American Chemical Society (ACS) is holding its 245th meeting April 7 – 11, 2013 and its first International Symposium on Bacterial Nanocellulose simultaneously. I have written about nanocellulose previously but it’s always been concerned with the type derived from plant matter; bacterial nanocellulose is new to me but not the scientific community as the Apr. 8, 2013 news item on Azonano notes,

In the 1800s, French scientist Louis Pasteur first discovered that vinegar-making [and Kombucha tea and nata de coco] bacteria make “a sort of moist skin, swollen, gelatinous and slippery” — a “skin” now known as bacterial nanocellulose. Nanocellulose made by bacteria has advantages, including ease of production and high purity that fostered the kind of scientific excitement reflected in the first international symposium on the topic, Brown [R. Malcolm Brown, Jr., Ph.D.] pointed out.

Before going on to this latest research, here’s a description of cellulose and nanocellulose as per its presence in plant material (from the news item),

Cellulose is the most abundant organic polymer on Earth, a material, like plastics, consisting of molecules linked together into long chains. Cellulose makes up tree trunks and branches, corn stalks and cotton fibers, and it is the main component of paper and cardboard. People eat cellulose in “dietary fiber,” the indigestible material in fruits and vegetables. Cows, horses and termites can digest the cellulose in grass, hay and wood.

Most cellulose consists of wood fibers and cell wall remains. Very few living organisms can actually synthesize and secrete cellulose in its native nanostructure form of microfibrils. At this level, nanometer-scale fibrils are very hydrophilic and look like jelly. A nanometer is one-millionth the thickness of a U.S. dime. Nevertheless, cellulose shares the unique properties of other nanometer-sized materials — properties much different from large quantities of the same material. Nanocellulose-based materials can be stronger than steel and stiffer than Kevlar. Great strength, light weight and other advantages has fostered interest in using it in everything from lightweight armor and ballistic glass to wound dressings and scaffolds for growing replacement organs for transplantation.

A new kind of bacteria actively entered the nanocellulose picture in 2001 (from the news item) allowing Brown to exploit research he had been pursuing since the 1970s (from the news item),

Brown recalled that in 2001, a discovery by David Nobles, Ph.D., a member of the research team at the University of Texas at Austin, refocused their research on nanocellulose, but with a different microbe. Nobles established that several kinds of blue-green algae, which are mainly photosynthetic bacteria much like the vinegar-making bacteria in basic structure; however, these blue-green algae, or cyanobacteria, as they are called, can produce nanocellulose. One of the largest problems with cyanobacterial nanocellulose is that it is not made in abundant amounts in nature. If it could be scaled up, Brown describes this as “one of the most important discoveries in plant biology.”

While I find the science interesting, it’s Brown’s comments about the policy and politics of commercializing nanocellulose-based fuels that intrigue me (from the news item),

In his report at the ACS meeting, Brown described how his team already has genetically engineered the cyanobacteria to produce one form of nanocellulose, the long-chain, or polymer, form of the material. And they are moving ahead with the next step, engineering the cyanobacteria to synthesize a more complete form of nanocellulose, one that is a polymer with a crystalline architecture. He also said that operations are being scaled up, with research moving from laboratory-sized tests to larger outdoor facilities.

Brown expressly pointed out that one of the major barriers to commercializing nanocellulose fuels involves national policy and politics, rather than science. Biofuels, he said, will face a difficult time for decades into the future in competing with the less-expensive natural gas now available with hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.”  [emphasis mine] In the long run, the United States will need sustainable biofuels, he said, citing the importance of national energy policies that foster parallel development and commercialization of biofuels.