Features

Chemistry World and Education in Chemistry magazines have published a few of my features.

This one about metals in polymers [plastics] appeared in the November 2006 edition of Chemistry World:

Metallic Plastic

Polymers pervade nearly every part of our lives, and almost everyone knows how useful these long-chain molecules are. Meanwhile, any high-school chemistry student can tell you that metal complexes have many interesting properties like redox behaviour, catalysis and magnetism. But is it possible to get the best of both worlds?

Slowly but surely, chemists have developed ways to make a range of polymers with the same exciting physical and chemical properties as metals, without sacrificing the mechanical strength and ease of processing found in conventional plastics. This has opened up plenty of potential applications for these materials, from nanotechnology to fuel cells, chemical sensors to catalysis.

RSC members can access this feature here. Alternatively, please contact me by email if you would like the full copy.


Education in Chemistry is a magazine for teachers of chemistry. Every issue they include a supplement called 'InfoChem' aimed at secondary school chemistry students. I've written two, one on the element selenium in our diet (from the November 2006 issue), the other on nuclear waste (in the March 2007 issue):

A little selenium goes a long way

Despite being one of the rarest elements on Earth, selenium is an essential nutrient. But our diets contain less selenium now than ever before. Does this put our health at risk?

The Department of Health’s recommended daily selenium intake is 75 g (micrograms) for men and 60 g for women. That’s about the amount contained in a small can (20–25 g) of tuna. Other selenium-rich foods include Brazil nuts and kidney while beef, shellfish and chicken also contain relatively large amounts of the element. In general, however, selenium intake in Europe has fallen dramatically in the past 30 years. The average person in the UK now gets about half of the recommended amount in their diet.

Read the full feature here


Dealing with nuclear waste

Nuclear power is a low-carbon technology, but it does come with a catch: it produces waste that emits harmful radiation for many thousands, even millions of years. UK chemists, however, are working to produce materials and technology to deal with this problem.

The UK looks set to increase its reliance on nuclear power. Scientists and politicians agree that this technology will be a necessary part of the energy mix to meet the pledge to cut 60 per cent of the country's carbon emissions by 2050. The UK currently has 24 nuclear reactors, many of which began operating in the 1950s. They produce one-fifth of our electricity but are now nearing the end of their lifetime and need to be decommissioned, which will produce yet more waste. Even if no new reactors are built there will be an estimated 478,000 m³ of radioactive waste by 2120: enough to fill London's Royal Albert Hall five times over. What is this waste and how is it being dealt with?

Read the full feature here


Finally, a mini-feature on the use of vegetables in place of conventional reagents in labs in developing countries, from Chemistry World 20 March 2007.

Is your lab ready to go veggie?

Imagine heading down to the vegetable patch not the store cupboard next time you need a jar of sodium hydride. Or how about consulting your local market stall, not the chemicals catalogue, next time you need an elaborate catalyst? Not as strange an idea as it sounds, thinks Geoffrey Cordell, of the University of Illinois at Chicago, US.

Cordell has published a study into the wealth of useful reactions that can be performed using fruit and veg in place of other, more conventional reagents. In a review article published in the latest issue of the Journal of Natural Products he demonstrates that the greengrocer's could be an unexpected goldmine of sustainable, cheap reagents that would benefit chemistry in developing countries.

Read the full article here