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#1
Science / Re: "Just One Word: Microplast...
Last post by Recusant - November 30, 2023, 10:55:52 PMSome positive-sounding news on this topic for once.
"Durable plastic pollution easily, cleanly degrades with new catalyst" | Northwestern University
A pre-print of the paper is available:
"Catalyst Design to Address Nylon Plastics Recycling" | ChemRxiv
"Durable plastic pollution easily, cleanly degrades with new catalyst" | Northwestern University
QuoteMany people are familiar with the haunting images of wildlife — including sea turtles, dolphins and seals — tangled in abandoned fishing nets.
The main issue behind Nylon-6, the plastic inside these nets, carpet and clothing, is that it's too strong and durable to break down on its own. So, once it's in the environment, it lingers for thousands of years, littering waterways, breaking corals and strangling birds and sea life.
Now, Northwestern University chemists have developed a new catalyst that quickly, cleanly and completely breaks down Nylon-6 in a matter of minutes — without generating harmful byproducts. Even better: The process does not require toxic solvents, expensive materials or extreme conditions, making it practical for everyday applications.
[Continues . . .]
A pre-print of the paper is available:
"Catalyst Design to Address Nylon Plastics Recycling" | ChemRxiv
QuoteAbstract:
Rational tailoring of catalytic systems offers highly desirable transformations targeting the growing environmental challenges associated with plastics pollution. For example, the identification of efficient catalysts to address alarming end-of-life Nylon pollution remains underexplored.
Nylon-6 is a non-biodegradable high-performance engineering plastic with centuries of chemical persistence, resulting in millions of tons of waste accumulation. Here we report the rational manipulation of organolanthanide catalyst structure to achieve an exceptionally efficient, solventless, and scalable Nylon-6 depolymerization process, affording monomer ε-caprolactam in ≥99% yield.
Specifically, catalyst Cp*2LaCH(TMS)2 (Cp* = η5-C5Me5, TMS = SiMe3) operates at catalyst loadings as low as 0.2 mol% and temperatures as low as 220 °C. For efficient deconstruction of more recalcitrant commodity Nylon-6 end-of-life articles such as fishing nets, carpets, and clothing, the robust, thermally stable ansa-metallocene catalyst Me2SiCp''2YCH(TMS)2, (Cp'' = η5-C5Me4) effects >99% conversion of these items into ε-caprolactam.
The collected product can be readily re-polymerized to afford pristine Nylon-6 with higher molecular masses and comparable structural regularity, providing a superior upcycling pathway for end-of-life Nylon plastics. Experimental mechanistic studies reveal intriguing and effective depolymerization pathways, such as catalytic intrachain "unzipping" enabled by the catalyst π-ancillary ligand steric constraints. Effective interchain "hopping" mechanisms, as well as chain-end deactivation are also demonstrated and supported by DFT analyses.
#2
Science / Re: Ambient Temperature/Pressu...
Last post by Recusant - November 30, 2023, 10:29:37 PMBack to the drawing board. Seems it has been more or less conclusively determined that LK-99 is not a room-temperature superconductor. 
"LK-99 Is No Radical Superconductor After All, Scientists Confirm" | | Science Alert
A pre-print version of the paper (which has now been peer-reviewed and published in Matter) is open access:
"First order transition in Pb10-xCux(PO4)6O (0.9<x<1.1) containing Cu2S" | arXiv
"LK-99 Is No Radical Superconductor After All, Scientists Confirm" | | Science Alert
QuoteEver since the spooky phenomenon of superconductivity was discovered in 1911, scientists have been searching for superconducting materials that work under practical conditions.
If only they could find a compound in which electrical resistance vanishes at room temperature and ambient pressure – not extreme cold and ultrahigh forces – then we could finally step into the world they envisage of ultrafast computer chips, levitating trains, and superefficient energy grids.
For a hot minute, it looked like 2023 was going to be the year where physicists' pursuits broke through the room-temperature barrier. But those hopes – which were doused in skepticism from the start – were dashed not once, but twice in the space of a few months.
Now, the findings from a team of materials scientists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) have been peer-reviewed, putting another nail in the coffin of LK-99, the material a South Korean team claimed in July was a room-temperature superconductor.
[. . .]
To recap, Zhu and colleagues synthesized two kinds of LK-99 with different copper(I) sulfide (Cu2S) content and investigated the samples' material properties.
Firstly, they showed the electrical resistance of Cu2S alone plummeted around 112 °C (385 K) and they saw a similar effect in LK-99 samples with lots of copper sulfide impurities.
That 'transition' temperature is not far off 105 °C – the temperature at which the South Korean team reported LK-99's superconductivity properties emerged.
But Zhu and colleagues argue that LK-99's superconductor-like properties most likely originate from the Cu2S, which morphs from a hexagonal structure to a monoclinic one near 126 °C (400 K). Their impure LK-99 samples also didn't show zero resistivity like a true superconductor would.
This "strongly suggests that the superconductivity-like behavior in LK-99 reported by Lee et al. is caused by the structural phase transition of the impurity Cu2S" the researchers write.
[Continues . . .]
A pre-print version of the paper (which has now been peer-reviewed and published in Matter) is open access:
"First order transition in Pb10-xCux(PO4)6O (0.9<x<1.1) containing Cu2S" | arXiv
QuoteAbstract:
Lee et al. reported that the compound LK-99, with a chemical formula of Pb10xCux(PO4)6O (0.9<x<1.1), exhibits room-temperature superconductivity under ambient pressure. In this study, we investigated the transport and magnetic properties of pure Cu2S and LK-99 containing Cu2S.
We observed a sharp superconducting-like transition and a thermal hysteresis behavior in the resistivity and magnetic susceptibility. However, we did not observe zero-resistivity below the transition temperature. We argue that the so-called superconducting behavior in LK-99 is most likely due to a reduction in resistivity caused by the first order structural phase transition of Cu2S at around 385 K, from the β phase at high temperature to the γ phase at low temperature.
#3
Obituaries / Re: ding dong
Last post by billy rubin - November 30, 2023, 09:31:04 PMkissinger enabled nixon to escalate the war in vietnam by secretly bombing neighbohring cambodia. arguably his meddling there helped lead to the ascendency of pol pot and tbe khmer rouge.
he also was i strumental in the coup in chile in which president salvadore allende was asassinated allende was a a popular socialist, but kissinger wanted something else. pinochet took power for years, and murdered and tortured thousands of citizens.
i dont know whether he was a war criminal, but he did not deserve to live to be 100 and die peacefully. if machiavelli ever had a modern follower, it was kissinger.
he also was i strumental in the coup in chile in which president salvadore allende was asassinated allende was a a popular socialist, but kissinger wanted something else. pinochet took power for years, and murdered and tortured thousands of citizens.
i dont know whether he was a war criminal, but he did not deserve to live to be 100 and die peacefully. if machiavelli ever had a modern follower, it was kissinger.
#4
History / Re: Fresnel lenses and Lightho...
Last post by Recusant - November 30, 2023, 05:05:36 PMHaven't watched the full video yet. From having spent my younger years on the actual coast of the west coast of North America and visited a few lighthouses there and elsewhere, I've been lucky enough to see a variety of Fresnel lenses. I think they have remarkable charisma in person. 
#5
Music / Re: What are you listening to?
Last post by zorkan - November 30, 2023, 03:15:59 PM #6
Pseudo-science, Conspiracy Theories, and Other Loads of Bull / Re: Whole town abducted by ali...
Last post by zorkan - November 30, 2023, 03:08:31 PMI do find Kaku to be more entertaining than sci-fi, and I guess he thinks he might be right about some things to go down in history. He has strongly influenced string theory, and he may be right.
He also knows it's not testable at the present.
Just go back to the abduction story. All occupants of Grantham were abducted by aliens in 1965.
What followed is alleged to be the biggest cover-up in British history.
We know that one victim suffered with PTSD.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34756534/
He also knows it's not testable at the present.
Just go back to the abduction story. All occupants of Grantham were abducted by aliens in 1965.
What followed is alleged to be the biggest cover-up in British history.
We know that one victim suffered with PTSD.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34756534/
#7
Obituaries / Re: ding dong
Last post by Asmodean - November 30, 2023, 02:39:09 PMA hundred years is a very good run.
I did not know that he was a war criminal, but then, it is the Rolling Stone, so as likely to be a shameless lie.
I did not know that he was a war criminal, but then, it is the Rolling Stone, so as likely to be a shameless lie.
#8
Obituaries / ding dong
Last post by billy rubin - November 30, 2023, 02:14:58 PM #9
Pseudo-science, Conspiracy Theories, and Other Loads of Bull / Re: Whole town abducted by ali...
Last post by Asmodean - November 30, 2023, 11:13:57 AMNo salt makes one's food bland, is what I say. 
I have not heard Michio Kaku speak from a position of authority about that, in which he has no such position (actually at all, if I think about it) - possibly because I've simply not heard very much of him, period. Still, it is worth noting again and again and for as long as needed, that an impressive name does not a good argument make - especially when said name starts throwing itself around, kind-of like, "but mom, how can you know that if I use the road as a football field, I'll get run over by a garbage truck?" "Because I'm your mother, that's how!" Yeah, that was deeply unpersuasive when I was ten.
I have not heard Michio Kaku speak from a position of authority about that, in which he has no such position (actually at all, if I think about it) - possibly because I've simply not heard very much of him, period. Still, it is worth noting again and again and for as long as needed, that an impressive name does not a good argument make - especially when said name starts throwing itself around, kind-of like, "but mom, how can you know that if I use the road as a football field, I'll get run over by a garbage truck?" "Because I'm your mother, that's how!" Yeah, that was deeply unpersuasive when I was ten.
#10
History / Re: Fresnel lenses and Lightho...
Last post by hermes2015 - November 30, 2023, 08:32:08 AMThanks, Icarus. I enjoyed watching that.