Perfluorocubane is (as you would expect) weird
science.org
science.org
For those who are wondering if this has any practical applications, the answer is almost certainly no. At best, someone might look at the synthetic pathways used to produce perfluorocubane to attempt to make something similar. It has really unusual spectroscopic and physical properties, which is pretty cool, but mostly in the sense of being a curiosity rather than being something you can do something with.
Imagine this as being the chemistry version of someone managing to get Doom to run on an electric toothbrush or something. It's interesting and amusing to know it's possible, but you're never actually going to start using your Sonicare for gaming.
https://web.archive.org/web/20150506055228/http://www.timecu...
And probably the other three simultaneous days.
What about using that free electron in the middle to do computing? Perhaps a quantum computer or something
I mean that's what reminded me: quantum computers often trap a charged particle, perhaps an ion or electrons, and use it to store qubits. This stuff here seems to be a perfect electron trap. Or isn't it?
(note, I'm just throwing ideas in the air, I know almost nothing of chemistry, semiconductors or quantum computers)
But this will lead places.
In addition reduce search spaces. That's what it's all about with molecules these days. Search spaces.
"Layperson fire extinguishing: leave area and allow fuel to burn itself out"
"Professional fire extinguishing: leave area and allow fuel to burn itself out".
A small amount of hydrofluoric acid on the skin isn't that much worse than any other acid on the skin. It gives you a chemical burn and you certainly don't want any of this stuff near your eyes, but it is by no means instant death. We're not talking dimethylmercury or arsine gas levels of toxicity.
The problem with HF is that it penetrates tissues and eats calcium so you don't get the pain reception telling you how much HF you actually just got exposed to. That is REALLY DANGEROUS. You can have been exposed to a lot of HF vapor or liquid and not know.
Consequently, you have to treat every HF exposure as potentially lethal because:
1) you might have gotten a much bigger exposure than you think
2) HF consumes your calcium which can stop your heart long after your initial treatment if you don't replenish the calcium after a large exposure.
What happens is your body has to neutralize the acid that very freely absorbs into you through skin contact, and hours later when/if the amount you took exceeds your (mostly) kidney's ability to maintain pH/ion balances, your nerves stop firing for lack of calcium to enable the electrical activity and your heart stops beating normally, then at all.
I think part of the, hrm, atmosphere of terror surrounding it is the delayed onset of symptoms, in the rabies "by the time you can tell, you're in deep kaka" sense. That and its ability to just slide through a lot of protection.
Lol - that's the best
1. Quantum mechanics predicts that the target molecule can accommodate an electron inside (electron-in-a-cube).
2. A sample of the target molecule was prepared, and yes, it involved elemental fluorine, a very difficult substance to handle safely and one notorious for nonproductively chewing up just about everything you give it.
3. Analytical results were consistent with the structure.
4. The substance's electrochemistry at low temperatures was consistent with the uptake of an electron at the predicted potential. Fine structure of results are consistent with the electron-in-a-cube idea. At room temperature, the results indicate decomposition.
5. Bonus: the electrochemical results suggest the electron-in-a-cube assembly is rotating unexpectedly.
This is a really good example of basic science in action. Observation (some molecules envelop other molecules), generalization (maybe a molecule could envelop an electron), hypothesis (calculations suggest this envelope in particular would work, and would yield these specific observations), experiment (figure out how to make the thing, make it, then measure the predicted properties), update hypothesis (in this case, the electron-in-a-cube is rotating unexpectedly).
It's also a good example of why it's a good idea to do experiments you think will "work". Sometimes they don't work and your hypothesis does in fact suck. Sometimes they work exactly as you expect and you can add that to the pile of evidence you already have in support of the hypothesis. And sometimes you get a surprise.
- "At very low temperatures (77K, matrix isolation) in an ESR apparatus, though, you can indeed see the spectrum of the predicted "electron in a cube", split just the way that you would have drawn it out."
(It's written for an audience who doesn't need to be reminded that "ESR" means Electron Spin Resonance, and that is not me!)
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnafk93vhO36cccP0p83h...
Of course I have no idea what any of this means. Maybe somebody could share a layman's explanation? What would be the benefit of "hold a free electron in the middle of that cube"?
How to explain it? Let's go to the foundations. Let's start with the periodic table: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periodic_table.
Matter is made up of atoms. Each atom has a nucleus and a cloud of electrons around it. Inside the nucleus we have some number of protons and neutrons. The number of protons determines which element it is. The number of protons + neutrons is basically how heavy it is - that's called an isotope. Isotopes don't matter for chemistry, so we'll ignore that.
For example if you have 6 protons then you're the 6th element. Namely carbon. And 9 electrons gives the 9th element, fluorine. Also protons carry a positive charge, so you'd generally have the same number of electrons as protons. But not always. If an atom or molecule has a different number of electrons and proteins then it is called an ion. More on that soon.
Next up, we have quantum mechanics. In a classical world, the electrons would want to go to the nucleus to hang out with the protons. In a quantum mechanical world, uncertainty in position times uncertainty in momentum has a minimum. Since electrons are light, if we know that an electron is in the nucleus, it probably has a momentum so big that it will soon NOT be in the nucleus. Therefore the best that the electron can do is be somewhere in a kind of probability cloud around the nucleus. Those clouds are called orbitals.
The exact shapes of those clouds have been worked out, and are called orbitals. Orbitals form into shells. Each orbital can contain 0, 1 or 2 electrons. Each shell has a finite (usually fairly short) list of orbitals in it, and all of this has been worked out. This is why the periodic table (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periodic_table again) is arranged into columns. Each column usually has the same stuff in its outer shell, and therefore is likely to do somewhat similar things chemically.
Most of chemistry comes from one rule. Atoms like having their outer shell either totally empty, or totally full. They have 2 ways to do. The first is the ionic bond. That's where one atom gives another an electron, making both into ions. The ions then hang out together and are called a salt. The second is a covalent bond, where 2 atoms share an electron each to give each an extra part time electron, making both happy. In the periodic table the farther towards the right and top you are, the more you want a full outer shell. And the farther towards the left and bottom you are, the more you are willing to give up electrons if someone asks.
In fact the elements on the left side care so little for their outer electrons that, when they get together, they let their outer electrons wander around freely. Those electrons make things shiny, and conduct a current when they all move together. Those are metals. By contrast the ones on the right are non-metals - they can steal from metals or share with each other. How many depends on which column they are in.
The very last column is the noble gases. They have a full outer shell and would like it to remain that way, thank you very much. So they don't get involved in this chemistry nonsense.
Now let's talk about the stuff involved in this article.
Fluorine, element 9, is the farthest to the top and right you can get without being a noble gas. It wants one electron and is vicious about getting it. Trying to get it do something unusual usually requires making it temporarily very unhappy. An unhappiness that it is perfectly willing to resolve by reacting with the chemist. This is not an idle threat - histories of fluorine usually start with a list of famous chemists who were killed or maimed in this way. However once it has reacted, it is often very stable. We stick fluoride into toothpaste and cook with teflon - both of which contain fluorine.
Carbon, element 6, comes 3 columns before. Its outer shell has 3 fewer electrons, so it wants 3 more. Making 4 bonds. But where fluorine is vicious, carbon is polite. This makes carbon the tinker toy of complex chemistry. Which is how it became the backbone of pretty much everything required for life as we know it.
Now what does this compound look like?
Let's start with a box. At each corner you put a carbon. Each corner is connected by edges to 3 other corners. That leaves each carbon short one bond. So we stick one fluorine off of each corner. That gives us the diagram at the top right of the article.
Now remember that fluorine is vicious, while carbon is polite. Yes, each fluorine is sharing an electron with a carbon, but it is rather unequal. The electron hangs out with the fluorine a lot more than with the carbon. Therefore the fluorines wind up negatively charged (the extra electron spends more time with them). The carbon atoms therefore wind up with a corresponding positive charge. And all of these positive charges, in theory, make the very center of the box a perfect place for a passing electron to take up residence. An electron that is not part of any atom, just sitting there enjoying a nice home. That extra free electron where an electron normally wouldn't be makes the whole thing an ion.
So it is cool that the theory works out. But in order to do it, some chemist had to do stuff with fluorine that nobody sane wants to happen anywhere near them, let alone be actually doing doing in a lab.
No but really if you have any book suggestions for an engineer wanting to learn more chemistry I would appreciate it!
If your goal is to learn somechemistry while being entertained, https://library.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pd... is a classic, and https://www.amazon.com/Chemistry-Book-Gunpowder-Graphene-Mil... is by the author of the blog post that this is about.
I thought photons were light
But compared to a proton, an electron is light. By a factor of 1,836.
That's the same ratio between my weight and your mom's weight! (j/k)
The extra electron makes it negatively charged by -1 (thus an anion).
My B.S. in chemistry is 25 years old, and I still got the story despite not working in the field [edit:sp]since. It should make sense if you've had organic and qualitative analytical chemistry, which are sophomore- and junior-level undergrad classes. Given his audience, that's pretty reasonable.
In my read of things it is pretty astounding whenever someone can convincingly prove they've actually synthesized any nanomaterial.
I'll never forget the answer she gave:
"I don't have time to attend that many funerals".
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnafk93vhO36cccP0p83hcop3...
I would read the crap out of this.
That molecule would really like to blow up.
I also had no expectations about something called Perfluorocubane.
Normally, you get the big fragments and at least some of the whole molecule ions. Not here. Too unstable.
ESR is more gentle.
The organic chem students didn't get to use the nice computerized FFT NMR machine that was in the basement - that was for analytical chem students and research projects. No, the NMR's you got to use in organic just scanned each frequency and had a plotter that traced your result on paper.
I did think that the single peak on both fluorine and carbon NMR was pretty cool.
Or maybe some kind of sensor?
Also could a cell be programmed to make this or do cells not have the ability to manipulate flourine?
One of the things you learn just from that series is that anything with this much fluorine jammed into it is just asking for trouble. Case in point, https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/things-i-won-t-wor...
https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/things-i-won-t-wor...
Fulminates and Azides are known for their physical sensitivity, they're the primary explosive used for the primers in gun cartridges. Azides are generally more sensitive than fulminates - mercury fulminate is an older primer compound where mercury azides are quite unstable and reactive.
Azidoazole Azide is basically an azide group bonded to an azole ring... azole is like pentane except with a nitrogen ring. So basically just one giant pile of nitrogen bonds looking for a reason to un-bond.
See also, Hexanitrohexaazaisowurtzitane, although the name isn't nearly as suggestive, but that's a nice little molecular diagram right there too lol. "Thrillingly nitrogenated", would probably be the description.
https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/things-i-won-t-wor...
I don't know, hexa-nitro hexa-aza is one hell of a lede.
https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/things-i-won-t-wor...
https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/things-i-won-t-wor...
https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/things-i-won-t-wor...
... I guess it was just me who thought of Transformers