{"id":142302,"date":"2022-07-16T18:04:18","date_gmt":"2022-07-16T23:04:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/07\/chemists-change-the-bonds-between-atoms-in-a-single-molecule-for-the-first-time"},"modified":"2022-07-16T18:04:18","modified_gmt":"2022-07-16T23:04:18","slug":"chemists-change-the-bonds-between-atoms-in-a-single-molecule-for-the-first-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/07\/chemists-change-the-bonds-between-atoms-in-a-single-molecule-for-the-first-time","title":{"rendered":"Chemists change the bonds between atoms in a single molecule for the first time"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"display: block; margin: 0 auto; width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 4\/3; object-fit: contain;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-b3mhFxMYrI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope;\n   picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>A team of researchers from IBM Research Europe, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela and the University of Regensburg has changed the bonds between the atoms in a single molecule for the first time. In their paper published in the journal <i>Science<\/i>, the group describes their method and possible uses for it. Igor Alabugin and Chaowei Hu, have published a Perspective piece in the same journal issue outlining the work done by the team.<\/p>\n<p>The current method for creating <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/complex+molecules\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">complex molecules<\/a> or molecular devices, as Alagugin and Chaowei note, is generally quite challenging\u2014they liken it to dumping a box of Legos in a washing machine and hoping that some useful connections are made. In this new effort, the research team has made such work considerably easier by using a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) to break the bonds in a molecule and then to customize the molecule by creating new bonds\u2014a chemistry first.<\/p>\n<p>The work by the team involved placing a sample material into a <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/scanning+tunneling+microscope\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">scanning tunneling microscope<\/a> and then using a very tiny amount of electricity to break specific bonds. More specifically, they began by pulling four <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/chlorine\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">chlorine<\/a> atoms from the core of a tetracyclic to use as their starting molecule. They then moved the tip of the STM to a C-CI bond and then broke the bond with a jolt of electricity. Doing so to the other C-CI and C-C pairs resulted in the formation of a diradical, which left six electrons free for use in forming other bonds. In one test of creating a new molecule, the team then used the <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/free+electrons\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">free electrons<\/a> (and a dose of high voltage) to form diagonal C-C bonds, resulting in the creation of a bent alkyne. In another example, they applied a dose of low voltage to create a cyclobutadiene ring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A team of researchers from IBM Research Europe, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela and the University of Regensburg has changed the bonds between the atoms in a single molecule for the first time. In their paper published in the journal Science, the group describes their method and possible uses for it. Igor Alabugin and Chaowei [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-142302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chemistry","category-particle-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142302\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}