Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Chemistry Inventions

1) Oxygen (1970s)

Oxygen is the third most abundant element in the universe and makes up nearly 21% of the earth's atmosphere, which is beneficial because we humans, in addition to other animals, need the gas to survive. Oxygen accounts for nearly half of the mass of the earth's crust, two thirds of the mass of the human body and nine tenths of the mass of water. In 1772, a Swedish Chemist by the name of Carl Wilhelm Scheele first discovered oxygen. Then came Joseph Priestly, an English chemist, who published his findings two years later. Priestley produces oxygen in experiments and describes its role in combustion and respiration. By dissolving fixed air in water, he invented carbonated water, without even knowing the gravity of his his experiment's culminations. Antoine Lavoisier, a French chemist, also discovered oxygen a year later in 1775, and was the first to recognize it as an element, and coined its name "oxygen" (deriving from Greek origin, meaning “acid-former”).

2) Atomic Theory (1808)

The theory of atomic structure and behavior has evolved in the past two millenia from the Greek philosopher's abstract hypotheses to modern day scientific data. However, this theory is said to begin with an English chemist and meteorologist, whi in fact did publish his book on the atmosphere and the behavior of gases titled A New System of Chemical Philosophy, John Dalton. his thesis was conjured upon for principles: chemical elements were composed of atoms; the atoms of an element were identical in weight; the atoms of different elements had different weights; and atoms combined only in small whole-number ratios, such as 1:1, 1:2, 2:1, 2:3, to form compounds. In a more broad definition, his assumption proposed that lements consisted of tiny particles called atoms.

3) Atoms Combined Into Molecules (1811 onward)

The Italian had many successful feats under their belt as well, what with the chemist Amedeo Avogadro and his discovery that atoms in elements can combine to form molecules. This would bring about the statistic that equal volumes of gases under equal conditions of temperature and pressure contain equal numbers of molecules.The materials that the earth are made of can be thought of as being of two kinds: elements and compounds. Humans, as well as all other animals, eat, drink, and breath chemicals into their bodily system. This constant chemical change ensures the progression of growth, motion, reproduce, and even sustainability throughout one's lifetime. Therefore, if atoms could not be joined together, life would not be possible.

4) Synthesis of Urea (1828)

For those who are not familiar with the term of Urea, then let me define it for you. According to several lexicons, urea is clarified as, "the chief solid component of mammalian urine; synthesized from ammonia and carbon dioxide and used as fertilizer and in animal feed and in plastics." It is also described as, "n organic compound with the chemical formula (NH2)2CO. The molecule has two amine (-NH2) residues joined by a carbonyl (-CO-) functional group." Friedrich Woehler accidentally, the chosen method of so many other renowned scientists around the globe, synthesized urea from matter without a natural, organized physical structure, proving a widespread audience with evidence that substances made by living things can be reproduced with nonliving substances. Until 1828, it was believed that organic substances could only form with the help of the "vital force" present in animals and plants. This synthesis, going more in depth, follows the operation commencing with a reaction of an amine with 4-nitrophenyl-N-benzylcarbamate, followed by hydrogenolysis, which provides the corresponding urea in high yield and purity. This carbamate can also be employed for the derivatization of water-soluble polyamines, while other reagents fail to give the desired products in any significant yield.

5) Chemical Structure (1850s)

In the 1850s study, done by Friedrich Kekule, efficiently mapped out the chemical structure of benzene, thus thrusting the particular study of the chemical edifice which defines matter to the front of the headlines. Kekule specifically wrote in his scientific journal that he had contrived the 'ring shape of the benzene molecule after dreaming of a snake seizing its own tail. The unusual structure solves the problem of how carbon atoms can bond with up to four other atoms at the same time.' This discovery opened up many doors for proceeding chemists. By understanding the behaviour of particles, and how they are arranged, chemists can explain and predict how materials behave, and make new materials with properties to suit a particular purpose.

6) Periodic Table of Elements (1860s-1870s)

The first periodic table was formulated by Dmitri Mendeleev, and was eventually published in 1869.Mendeleev found he could arrange the 65 elements that were then known in a grid or table so that each element had a) a higher atomic weight than the one on its left, and b) similar chemical properties to other elements in the same column. After just 64 known elements were arranged, Mendeleev took his observant characteristics into good use, and dually noted that the elements were arranged in order of increasing atomic weight, and their properties repeated according to certain periodic cycles. Although Mendeleev had made a crucial breakthrough, he made little further progress because the Rutherford-Bohr model of the atom had not yet been designed. Because of the empty spaces, the scientists formulated three predicted elements, which were then found during his lifetime: gallium, scandium and germanium. This led to the bloom of the aluminum industry, LED displays, rechargeable lithium batteries, and a myriad of other useful creations.

7) Electricity Transforms Chemicals (1807-1810)

Energy transformation is the process of changing energy from one form to another. This process presently, and always has, been a repetitive process throughout history. When people consume food, the body utilizes the chemical energy in the bonds of the food and transforms it into mechanical energy, a new form of chemical energy, or thermal energy. Energy transformation is an important concept in the application of the physical sciences. The ability for energy to be transformed converts to a largely automatic operation, illuminates, practices, and constantly heats the earth in an extraordinary abundance of methods. Humphry Davy found that electricity transforms chemicals. In his experiments, he utilized an electric pile, or barely used battery, to separate salts by a process now known as electrolysis. With many batteries he was able to separate elemental potassium and sodium in calcium, strontium, barium and magnesium. Nonetheless, anyone can vouch that no machine is 100% productive, and in the transformation of chemicals, a quantity of energy is lost in heat, which can even be observed simply by consciously keeping vigilance on the heat emitted by a computer, a car, or another type of machine that has been in use for a period of time.

8) The Electron (1897)

Experiments by J.J. Thomson in 1897 led to the discovery of a fundamental building block of matter. His discovery proved that the negatively charged particles excreted from cathode ray tubes (a vacuum tube containing an electron gun that provides a source of electrons and a fluorescent screen, with internal or external means to accelerate and deflect the electron beam, used to create images in the form of light emitted from the fluorescent screen) are smaller than atoms and pieces of all atoms. The invention was soon after entitled "corpuscles", which was ultimately renamed electrons. Later obtained was the information that
Joseph Thompson measured the ratio of the mass to the electrical charge, which he then extracted a piece of the atom that was electrical via cathoray tube, which was bent by a magnet, resulting in the discovery of subatomic particles.

9) Electrons for Chemical Bonds (1913 onward)

The electrons that participate in chemical bonds are labeled as the valence electrons, which act as the electrons found in an atom's outermost shell. When two atoms collide in a natural environment, these outer electrons intermingle. Electrons repel each other, as do similar magnetic poles, yet they are attracted to the protons within atoms, just like opposite poles. The interplay of forces results in some atoms forming bonds with each other and sticking together. Niels Bohr, publisher of an atomic structure prototype in which electrons gallivant in schematic orbits around the nucleus, all in the time that the chemical properties of an element are largely determined by the number of electrons in its atoms' outer orbits. This paves the way to an understanding of how electrons are involved in chemical bonding.

10) Atoms have Signatures of Light (1850s)

Gustav Kirchhoff, a German physicist who contributed to the fundamental understanding of electrical circuits, and Robert Bunsen, a German chemist who conducted experiments with the help of Kirchhoff of the emission spectra of heated elements, to discover caesium (1860) and rubidium (1861), found that each element absorbs or emits light at specific wavelengths, producing specific spectra. They utilized the prisms that spread light in a colorful rainbow using bunsen burners in their labs. Acting like bar codes, the colors reflected were a dead giveaway as to which atoms were present in the flames

11) Radioactivity (1890s-1900s)

The broad burst of radioactivity commenced with x-rays, in which uranium was the tested material. Marie Pierre Curie undertook the job of isolating elements in uranium ore, polonium and radium (1 mil times more radioactive than uranium), which yielded the repercussions of an atomic process. In her notes, she recorded of the residual material that was more "active" than the pure uranium. In 1934 she died from radioactive poisoning with the aid of alpha and beta particles and gamma rays that could penetrate matter (discovered after Marie curie's death). Her dedication to the sciences led to medical imaging, treatment for tumors, calculating the age of the earth, power source for spacecrafts, and some constituents of smoke detectors.

12) Plastics (1869 and 1900s)

In the 1860s, John hyatt employed cellulose (an insoluble substance that is the main constituent of plant cell walls and of vegetable fibers such as cotton. It is a polysaccharide consisting of chains of glucose monomers) and created the first plastic. His main reason behind fabricating the material (celluloid plastic, that is) was for use as a substitute for ivory in the manufacture of billiard balls. Polymer bakelite from a Belgian scientist named Leo Baekeland,was also discovered practicing the methods of authenticating the first synthetic plastic. These plastics were, and still are, long chain molecules of carbon atoms and is moldable, whereas you can make bulletproof vests, nylon, rayon, plexiglass, polyethylene, and even mimic and even surpass natural fibers. it is described as, "human's creativity of chemistry".

13) Fullerenes (1985)

The 1996 Nobel Prize for Chemistry was rewarded to Harold W. Kroto, Robert F. Curl and Richard E. Smalley for their discovery in 1985 of a high-tech allotrope of carbon, in which the atoms are arranged in closed shells. The new form was scientifically found to have the structure of a truncated icosahedron by a credible source, and was named Buckminsterfullerene, after the architect Buckminster Fuller who designed geodesic domes in the 1960's. The creation period marked a full week which brought about the discovery of 60 carbon atoms that have the perfect symmetry down to the last nanometer in the hollow molecules of carbon called bucky tubes. These tubes were proven to be stiffer than steel or dime, but can be stretched out and is approximately 100 times stronger than steel. Fullerenes are quite literally the carbon nanotubes of the modern day industrial revolution.