Posted on 07/16/2005 10:16:53 PM PDT by neverdem
For four years, inventing a new toilet bowl freshener has been a sideline pursuit for Michael Lefenfeld, a 25-year-old graduate student in molecular electronics at Columbia. Mr. Lefenfeld's doctoral research focuses on the structure of molecules in nanoscale devices like transistors.
But his quest for a new freshener - a search inspired by his grandfather's wish for a quick way to neutralize smelly toilets - led to a surprising discovery, a way to encase sodium and other explosive alkaline metals in a powdered form of silicon gel, making them much safer to handle.
The powdery materials, researchers say, could eventually help pharmaceutical manufacturers sharply cut the cost of producing antibiotics and other types of drugs. In a different form, they might provide hydrogen for fuel cells in portable electronics. And lab tests suggest that the materials could be useful in environmental monitoring or in jobs like removing sulfur from petroleum.
"This could be of great, great interest for the pharmaceutical and chemical industries," said Boris Gorin, manager of research and development at Alphora Research, a Toronto-based designer of chemical production processes that is testing the materials. "Many reactions that are easy to do in the lab with alkaline metals can't be transferred into large-scale production today because of safety issues," he said.
Mr. Lefenfeld's story highlights the potential usefulness of mundane materials to nanotechnology, in which businesses are racing to create products and manufacturing processes by manipulating materials in such tiny dimensions that they are measured in nanometers, or billionths of a meter.
The field has mostly focused on the properties of recently discovered molecules like the tiny cylindrical carbon rods known as nanotubes or the light-emitting bits of silicon called quantum dots.
But Mr. Lefenfeld's work shows that breakthroughs may also come from tinkering at the molecular level with...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Alkaline Metals I wonder if this knucklehead studied any chemistry beyond a general science course.
I'll bet he was proud of himself for even getting that close ;-)
Personally, I'd much prefer a specialized toilet bowl cleaner to get rid of the nasty looking rink in the form of "I, Robot". Unfortunately, I've got to settle for a Pumie Heavy Duty Scouring Stick.
Whatever the solution, it has to be non-toxic and acceptable to dogs.
HA, HA!
We spend zillions researching space flight so someone could think up Tang.
We should have been spending hundreds researching toilet bowl fresheners instead.
I noticed that too. I also wonder if he meant "silica gel" instead of "silicon gel".
Probably just a knucklehead reporter who drew the short straw.
But, like, WOW, man, didn't ya know that correct spelling doesn't matter anymore? It's totally unfashionable to spell correctly. Like, d'ya really think that words have specific meanings, and that differentiating between them by spelling them correctly is really important or something? Besides, don't we all just know what this knucklehead means even if he looks illiterate in print?
I do medical transcription for a living, and I d****d well know that spelling it right does matter.
I have also noticed that a lot of people mix up the terms "silicon" and "silicone." Two different substances with entirely different uses.
Sheesh... nowadays even the proofreaders can't spell!!!
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