Earlier this year, a team of chemists created extraordinary electrical conductance in polystyrene, a usually non-conducting polymer, without altering its chemical makeup. Another group lowered the melting temperature of DNA so that it could fold into ‘origami’ structures at lower temperatures – again, without changing the molecules’ structure. And yet […]
Étiquette : catalysis
The liquid metals giving catalysis a new phase
There’s something compelling, even a little supernatural, about a metal in the liquid state. Liquid metals carry the heft, density and silvery sheen of their solid counterparts, but add a confounding fluidity. They’re unlike other metals, but unlike other liquids either. Mercury, for example, behaves quite differently to oils or […]