While most people over a certain age are trying to slow down the ageing process, scientists from the UK and Canada are trying to speed it up to help them make new materials more cleanly.
‘Accelerated ageing’ could become a new paradigm for the clean, low energy and solvent-free synthesis of metal-organic materials, claim the researchers. They were inspired by the slow geological processes of mineral weathering, which convert metal oxides and sulfides to metal-organic materials by exposing them to small organic molecules. By accelerating this process, they claim materials can be made without the continuous input of mechanical energy, high temperatures or organic solvents. Their simple process involves exposing a mixture of a metal oxide and an organic ligand to catalytic amounts of an ammonium salt at mild temperature and high humidity.
Link to journal article
Accelerated aging: a low energy, solvent-free alternative to solvothermal and mechanochemical synthesis of metal-organic materials
Tomislav Friscic, Matthew J Cliffe, Cristina Mottillo, Robin S Stein and Dejan-Kresimir Bucar
Chem. Sci., 2012, DOI: 10.1039/c2sc20344h
