Exquisite stereochemical control will allow creation of millions of unique polymers

Chemists can now precisely control the stereochemical sequence of synthetic polymers using similar techniques to those used to create artificial DNA. Growing polymers one monomer at a time could unlock ‘out of the box’ sequences with unique properties, say researchers.

Synthetic polymers are typically non-uniform, varying in both length and structure. Current synthetic methods such as radical or anionic polymerisation also have limited control on how stereocentres are introduced along the polymer backbone. ‘I was a bit frustrated by the tools [chemists] use to build polymers,’ says Jean-François Lutz at the University of Strasbourg in France who led the study.

Lutz and Ranajit Barman have now developed a synthetic method that can create polymers with complete control over the order of monomers, allowing for the relative order of stereocentres to be precisely managed.

The team first synthesised two chiral phosphodiester amide monomers with opposite configuration, which were then used in iterations of solid phase phosphoramidite chemistry to build the polymers stepwise, similar to how artificial DNA and RNA is made.




Twenty different polymers up to 50 monomers long were synthesised using this method, including polymer sequences that were previously difficult to obtain. ‘The polymers that we made are not super interesting [in terms of their properties],’ says Lutz, adding that they were made as a proof of concept that the method worked.

There are currently only three main types of stereochemical polymers: isotactic, meaning all substituents are on the same side of the chain; syndiotactic, an alternating substituent configuration; and heterotactic, where the stereochemistry changes every two monomers, explains Lutz. ‘These terms are historical,’ he says, adding that this new method unlocks the possibility for ‘out of the box’ sequences that have not yet been made. With this method, over one million unique sequences are theoretically possible for polymers with as little as 20 monomers that contain stereocentres.

‘The huge disadvantage of this solid phase synthesis method is that it is low scale due to cost,’ says polymer chemist Róża Szweda at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poland. She thinks that this may hinder the application of these polymers for material use. Szweda suggests that these polymers may find alternative uses in encoding digital information or helping create artificial enzymes, which only need small amounts of polymer.

In addition to the spectroscopic and mass spectrometry techniques used by the team, Szweda says that advanced 2D-NMR may help further confirm the stereochemistry of these polymers. She adds that this method may subsequently ‘open up a demand for new characterisation techniques’ that can probe chiral sequences more accurately.

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Revolutionizing Li-ion Batteries: A New Pathway! #Analytical chemistry #...

Scientists crack the explosive secret of how diamonds reach the surface

Diamonds hitch a ride to the surface through explosive kimberlite eruptions, powered by volatile-rich magmas. New simulations show that carbon dioxide and water are the secret ingredients that make these eruptions possible.



If you've ever held or beheld a diamond, there's a good chance it came from a kimberlite. Over 70% of the world's diamonds are mined from these unique volcanic structures. Yet despite decades of study, scientists are still working to understand how exactly kimberlites erupt from deep in Earth's mantle to the surface.

Kimberlites -- carrot-shaped volcanic pipes that erupt from mantle depths greater than 150 km have long fascinated geologists as windows into the deep Earth. Their mantle-derived melt ascends rapidly through the mantle and crust, with some estimates suggesting ascent rates of up to 80 miles per hour before kimberlites erupt violently at the surface. Along the way, the magma captures xenoliths and xenocrysts, fragments of the rocks encountered on its path.

"They're very interesting and still very enigmatic rocks," despite being well-studied, says Ana Anzulović, a doctoral research fellow at the University of Oslo's Centre for Planetary Habitability.

In a study published this month in the journal Geology, Anzulović and colleagues from the University of Oslo have taken a major step toward solving the puzzle. By modelling how volatile compounds like carbon dioxide and water influence the buoyancy of proto-kimberlite melt relative to surrounding materials, they quantified for the first time what it takes to erupt a kimberlite.

Diamonds make it to the surface in kimberlites because their rapid ascent prevents them from reverting to graphite, which is more stable at shallow pressures and temperatures. But the composition of the kimberlite's original melt and how it rises so fast has remained mysterious.

"They start off as something that we cannot measure directly," says Anzulović. "So we don't know what a proto-kimberlite, or parental, melt would be like. We know approximately but everything we know basically comes from the very altered rocks that get emplaced."

To constrain the composition of these parental melts, the team focused on the Jericho kimberlite, which erupted into the Slave craton of far northwest Canada. Using chemical modelling, they tested different original mixtures of carbon dioxide and water.

"Our idea was, well, let's try to create a chemical model of a kimberlite, then vary CO2 and H2O," says Anzulović. "Think of it as trying to sample a kimberlite as it ascends at different pressure and temperature points."

The researchers used molecular dynamics software to simulate atomic forces and track how atoms in a kimberlite melt move under varying depths. From these calculations, they determined the density of the melt at different conditions and whether it remained buoyant enough to rise.

"The most important takeaway from this study is that we managed to constrain the amount of CO2 that you need in the Jericho kimberlite to successfully ascend through the Slave craton," Anzulović says. "Our most volatile-rich composition can carry up to 44% of mantle peridotite, for example, to the surface, which is really an impressive number for such a low viscosity melt."

The study also shows how volatiles play distinct roles. Water increases diffusivity, keeping the melt fluid and mobile. Carbon dioxide helps structure the melt at high pressures but, near the surface, it degasses and drives the eruption upward. For the first time, researchers demonstrated that the Jericho kimberlite needs at least 8.2% CO2 to erupt; without it, diamonds would remain locked in the mantle.

"I was actually pretty surprised that I can take such a small scale system and actually observe, 'Okay, if I don't put any carbon in, this melt will be denser than the craton, so this will not erupt,'" says Anzulović. "It's great that modeling kimberlite chemistry can have implications for such a large-scale process."

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New Algorithm Reveals the Secret Chemistry Behind Cheaper, Cleaner Propylene

Scientists have mapped the atomic interactions that make nanoscale catalysts so effective at converting propane into propylene.

The discovery highlights a stabilizing oxide pattern that could guide improved industrial production methods.

Propane’s Transformation Into Propylene

Many everyday goods, including plastic squeeze bottles and outdoor furniture, depend on a chemical process that converts propane into propylene. A 2021 report in Science showed that chemists could use tandem nanoscale catalysts to merge several stages of this conversion into a single reaction a method that raises efficiency and reduces costs for manufacturers. However, the precise atomic activity behind this combined process was still unknown, which made it difficult to extend the method to other major industrial reactions.

Algorithms Uncover Atomic-Level Details

Scientists at the University of Rochester created algorithms that highlight the atomic-scale features guiding the reaction when nanoscale catalysts convert propane into propylene. Their findings, published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, describe the complex interplay of materials that shift between multiple states during the reaction.

“There are so many different possibilities of what’s happening at the catalytic active sites, so we need an algorithmic approach to very easily yet logically screen through the large amount of possibilities that exist and focus on the most important ones,” says Siddharth Deshpande, an assistant professor in the Department of Chemical and Sustainability Engineering. “We refined our algorithms and used them to do a very detailed analysis of the metallic phase and oxide phase driving this very complex reaction.”

Oxide Behavior and Catalyst Stability

During their investigation, Deshpande and chemical engineering PhD student Snehitha Srirangam uncovered unexpected patterns. They observed that the oxide in the reaction tended to form around defective metal sites in a highly selective way, a feature that played a crucial role in keeping the catalyst stable.

Even though the oxide can appear in several chemical compositions, it consistently remained positioned around those defective metal sites.

Expanding the Approach to Other Industrial Reactions

Deshpande says this deeper understanding, along with the team’s algorithmic tools, can help scientists examine the atomic structures of other important reactions, including methanol synthesis that supports products ranging from paints to fuel cells. He believes that over time, this knowledge could guide companies toward more efficient strategies for producing propylene and other industrial chemicals so they can move away from the trial-and-error methods commonly used today.

“Our approach is very general and can open the doors to understand many of these processes that have remained an enigma for decades,” says Deshpande. “We know these processes work, and we produce tons of these chemicals, but we have much to learn about why exactly they’re working.”

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Unveiling Oil Stability Secrets! #Analytical chemistry #chemistry # oil ...

Scientists Create 7 Remarkable New Ceramic Materials by Simply Removing Oxygen

Penn State scientists discovered seven new ceramics by simply removing oxygen opening a path to materials once beyond reach.

Sometimes, less truly is more. By removing oxygen during the synthesis process, a team of materials scientists at Penn State successfully created seven new high-entropy oxides (HEOs) a class of ceramics made from five or more metals that show promise for use in energy storage, electronics, and protective coatings.

During their experiments, the researchers also established a framework for designing future materials based on thermodynamic principles. Their findings were published in Nature Communications.

“By carefully removing oxygen from the atmosphere of the tube furnace during synthesis, we stabilized two metals, iron and manganese, into the ceramics that would not otherwise stabilize in the ambient atmosphere,” said corresponding and first author Saeed Almishal, research professor at Penn State working under Jon-Paul Maria, Dorothy Pate Enright Professor of Materials Science.

Machine learning expands material possibilities

Almishal first succeeded in stabilizing a manganese- and iron-containing compound by precisely controlling oxygen levels in a material he called J52, composed of magnesium, cobalt, nickel, manganese, and iron. Building on this, he used newly developed machine learning tools an artificial intelligence technique capable of screening thousands of possible material combinations within seconds to identify six additional metal combinations capable of forming stable HEOs.

With the assistance of a team of undergraduate students who processed, fabricated, and characterized the samples, Almishal produced bulk ceramic pellets of all seven novel, stable, and potentially functional HEO compositions. The students’ work was supported by the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Penn State’s Center for Nanoscale Science, a U.S. National Science Foundation–funded Materials Research Science and Engineering Center.

Thermodynamic principles behind stabilization

“In a single step, we stabilized all seven compositions that are possible given our current framework,” Almishal said. “Although this was previously treated this as a complex problem in the field of HEOs, the solution was simple in the end. With a careful understanding of the fundamentals of material and ceramic synthesis science and particularly the principles of thermodynamics we found the answer.”

Stabilizing these materials, Almishal explained, involves “coercing” the manganese and iron atoms to stay in the 2+ oxidation state, also known as the rock salt structure, where each atom bonds with only two oxygen atoms. Under normal oxygen levels, the materials would fail to stabilize because the manganese and iron atoms would keep binding with additional oxygen, shifting to a higher oxidation state. By reducing the amount of oxygen in the tube furnace, the researchers restricted how much oxygen the material could absorb, allowing it to form and remain in the stable rock salt structure.

“The main rule we followed in synthesizing these materials is the role that oxygen plays in stabilizing such ceramic materials,” Almishal said.

Confirming results and future directions

To make sure that manganese and iron in each new material were stable in the target oxidation state, Almishal collaborated with researchers from Virginia Tech. They performed an advanced imaging technique to measure how X-rays are absorbed by the atoms in the material. By analyzing the resulting data, researchers could determine the oxidation state of specific elements and confirm the stability of manganese and iron in the new materials.

In the next phase of research, the researchers said they will test all seven new materials for their magnetism. They also aim to apply their thermodynamic framework for controlling oxygen during synthesis to other material classes currently considered unstable and challenging to synthesize.

“This paper, which has already been accessed online thousands of times, seems to resonate with researchers because of its simplicity,” Almishal said. “Although we focus on rock salt HEOs, our methods provide a broad adaptable framework for enabling uncharted, promising chemically disordered complex oxides.”

As a result of his extensive lab work on the new materials, co-author and undergraduate materials science and engineering major Matthew Furst was invited to present the research at the American Ceramic Society’s (ACerS) Annual Meeting with Materials Science and Technology 2025 an honor usually reserved for faculty or senior graduate students which took place Sept. 28 through Oct. 1 in Columbus, Ohio.

“I am so grateful for the opportunities that I have had on this project and to be involved in every step of the research and publication process,” Furst said. “Being able to present this material to a broad audience as an invited talk reflects my involvement and the excellent guidance I have received from my mentors. It means a lot to me to develop important communication skills as an undergraduate student, and I look forward to pushing myself further in the future!”

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