Novel UV Broadband Spectrometer Revolutionises Air Pollutant Analysis

The laser-based technology developed at TU Graz enables the continual real-time analysis of air pollutants and their interaction with other gases and sunlight

11-Apr-2024 - Sunlight has a major influence on chemical processes. Its high-energy UV radiation in particular is strongly absorbed by all materials and triggers photochemical reactions of the substances present in the air. A well-known example is the formation of ground-level ozone when UV light hits nitrogen ...

Using light to produce medication and plastics more efficiently

How the energy efficiency of photochemical reactions can be increased tenfold

20-Mar-2024 - Anyone who wants to produce medication, plastics or fertilizer using conventional methods needs heat for chemical reactions – but not so with photochemistry, where light provides the energy. The process to achieve the desired product also often takes fewer intermediate steps. Researchers from the ...

Nanoplastics unexpectedly produce reactive oxidizing species when exposed to light

10-Jan-2023 - Plastics are ubiquitous in our society, found in packaging and bottles as well as making up more than 18% of solid waste in landfills. Many of these plastics also make their way into the oceans, where they take up to hundreds of years to break down into pieces that can harm wildlife and the ...

Discovery overturns major assumptions in crystal photochemistry!

Molecular crystal exhibits propagation of photochemical reaction

14-Dec-2022 - Stimuli-responsive materials, whose physical properties change in response to external stimuli such as light and heat, are being widely studied as next-generation functional materials. Especially, photo-responsive materials are attracting much attention because their physicochemical properties ...

Making stable molecules reactive with light

Modulating the photocyclization reactivity of diarylethenes through changes in the excited-state aromaticity of the π-linker

15-Sep-2022 - Researchers at Linköping University have used computer simulations to show that stable aromatic molecules can become reactive after absorbing light. The results, published in the Journal of Organic Chemistry, may have long-term applications in such areas as the storage of solar energy, ...

PFAS chemicals do not last forever

The use of sulfite and iodide under ultraviolet light can destroy PFAS in water in a few hours

25-May-2022 - Once dubbed “forever chemicals,” per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, might be in the market for a new nickname. That’s because adding iodide to a water treatment reactor that uses ultraviolet (UV) light and sulfite destroys up to 90% of carbon-fluorine atoms in PFAS forever chemicals in ...

Light amplification accelerates chemical reactions in aerosols

Temporal sequence of photochemical reaction in individual aerosol particles observed with high resolution

21-Apr-2022 - Aerosols in the atmosphere react to incident sunlight. This light is amplified in the interior of the aerosol droplets and particles, accelerating reactions. ETH researchers have now been able to demonstrate and quantify this effect and recommend factoring it into future climate models. Liquid ...

Productive Cascade

Total synthesis of the sesquiterpene agarozizanol B

12-Oct-2021 - Starting from available chemicals, a German team of researchers successfully completed the total synthesis of agarozizanol B, an interesting natural substance found in agarwood. As described in the journal Angewandte Chemie, the key sequence in the relatively short synthetic pathway is a ...

Sunlight can break down marine plastic into tens of thousands of chemical compounds

13-Sep-2021 - Sunlight was once thought to only fragment plastics in the marine environment into smaller particles that chemically resemble the original material and persist forever. However, scientists more recently have learned that sunlight also chemically transforms plastic into a suite of polymer-, ...

Mechanism Deciphered: How Organic Acids Are Formed in the Atmosphere

17-May-2021 - The acidity of the atmosphere is increasingly determined by carbon dioxide and organic acids such as formic acid. The second of these contribute to the formation of aerosol particles as a precursor of raindrops and therefore impact the growth of clouds and pH of rainwater. In previous atmospheric ...