5 comments

  • snitty4 hours ago
    &gt;Move over cyclopentadiene anion—there’s a new five-membered aromatic ring in town, and this one is made of silicon.<p>CHEM-Es are build a little different from the rest of us.
    • gilleain3 hours ago
      Cyclopentadiene is a great molecule - it can form &#x27;metallocene&#x27; compounds where two cyclopentadiene (Cp) rings &#x27;sandwich&#x27; a metal ion between them:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Metallocene" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Metallocene</a><p>Like Cp--M--Cp where the &#x27;--&#x27; are an unusual kind of &#x27;bond&#x27; which is somewhat like five carbon-metal bonds, although I&#x27;m sure there is a more accurate orbital description of the interaction.
      • theideaofcoffee2 hours ago
        The ‘--‘ is a ligand bond, a fundamental aspect of coordination and organometallic chemistry.
    • nerdsniper2 hours ago
      Chemists really. Chem-E’s basically just play IRL Factorio at work. The graphs in Factorio look almost exactly like OSI PiSoft charts, which basically every chemical plant uses.
    • bonzini3 hours ago
      &quot;The average person probably only knows the formulas for olivine and one or two feldspars&quot; (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;xkcd.com&#x2F;2501" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;xkcd.com&#x2F;2501</a>)
      • moffkalast2 hours ago
        And quartz of course.
      • robwwilliams3 hours ago
        Perfect! I read this “heart-warming” overview of two papers in Science and learned zero about why this is of any significance. The discovery is significant but I had to probe Opus 4.6 to find out why.<p>The personal focus is a distraction. It would be great if science writers could focus on the science and significance of the advance.
    • theideaofcoffee2 hours ago
      Nah, this is just a strict chemical synthesis problem, no need for the engineers yet, until you want to make ten thousand tons of the stuff.
  • JackFr3 hours ago
    Dilithium is a real thing. Who knew?<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Dilithium" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Dilithium</a>
    • rrr_oh_man3 hours ago
      It&#x27;s indispensable when dealing with self-sealing stem bolts
  • rbanffy4 hours ago
    Any possible applications?
    • ultratalk4 hours ago
      &gt; Iwamoto and Scheschkewitz say pentasilacyclopentadienides could be ligands for catalysts and materials.
      • frederikvs2 hours ago
        Sounds like it could improve the production efficiency of glyptal-impregnated, cyanoethylated bushings for turbo-encabulators!
      • robwwilliams3 hours ago
        The review should have expanded on this at a practical level even mom and dad could understand—the standard “better life through chemistry” angle.
  • cubefox4 hours ago
    So what was their aroma like?
    • snitty4 hours ago
      In this case aromatic means a ring of atoms where there is electron sharing among all the members of the ring.<p>They&#x27;re called aromatic rings because before they understood the structure, they grouped them by their behavior, and the aromatics contain a lot of volatile organics like benzene, toluene, phenol, which have strong odors.
      • worthless-trash3 hours ago
        I like your explanation without condescension. Respect.
      • moffkalast2 hours ago
        So it&#x27;s not volatile enough to give off a scent?
        • jfengel34 minutes ago
          Even if it were volatile, you likely wouldn&#x27;t be able to smell it. The olfactory sense is complicated and weird, and targeted at organic chemistry. You can smell a few inorganic things (notably, elemental osmium, whose name literally means &quot;smell&quot; because that&#x27;s so unusual), but your receptors are unlikely to trigger for anything that far removed.
          • card_zero28 minutes ago
            Doesn&#x27;t this count as organic? Ferrocene smells of camphor, apparently. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;compound&#x2F;ferrocene" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;compound&#x2F;ferrocene</a>
        • jaggederest1 hour ago
          Massive molecule with a lithium salt on every silicon atom. It&#x27;s not going to have basically any vapor pressure and thus effectively no aroma unless there are breakdown products
    • analog311 hour ago
      If you know, you&#x27;re probably dead.
    • andrewflnr2 hours ago
      &quot;Characteristic&quot;, no doubt.
  • YarickR23 hours ago
    So, we have a chance to reduce our usage of volatile hydrocarbons. Silicon-based chemicals should not burn as easily as CH-based ones.
    • gus_massa3 hours ago
      No, it&#x27;s a super weird molecule that is big, expensive to make and probably form a solid. It can not replace solvents like benzene.<p>The weird structure of the electrons in the silicon cycle <i>may</i> be useful as a catalyst(or not, it&#x27;s too early to be sure). Imagine it is like the Platinum in the car exhaust, not the solvent in the paint remover.
    • adrian_b3 hours ago
      This particular silicon compound is unlikely to help much in that direction.<p>On the other hand, silicone resins and elastomers are already in widespread use in applications where resistance to high temperatures or burning is required (silicone =&#x2F;= silicon, the former coming from silic-on + ket-one, a name based on a wrong hypothesis).<p>However, their mechanical resistance is usually modest, so if that is important they must be used either in combinations with other materials or reinforced, e.g. with glass fiber.<p>They are also more expensive than hydrocarbon-based plastics, so they are typically used only where strictly necessary.