Nanotechnology in the Chemical Industry – Opportunities and Challenges

The traditional chemical industry has become a largely mature industry with many commodity products based on established technologies. Therefore, new product and market opportunities will more likely come from speciality chemicals, and from new functionalities obtained from new processing technologies as well as new microstructure control methodologies. It is a well-known fact that in addition to its molecular structure, the microstructure of a material is key to determining its properties. Controlling structures at the micro- and nano-levels is therefore essential to new discoveries. For this article, we define nanotechnology as the controlled manipulation of nanomaterials with at least one dimension less than 100nm. Nanotechnology is emerging as one of the principal areas of investigation that is integrating chemistry and materials science, and in some cases integrating these with biology to create new and yet undiscovered properties that can be exploited to gain new market opportunities. In this article market opportunities for nanotechnology will be presented from an industrial perspective covering electronic, biomedical, performance materials, and consumer products. Manufacturing technology challenges will be identified, including operations ranging from particle formation, coating, dispersion, to characterization, modeling, and simulation. Finally, a nanotechnology innovation roadmap is proposed wherein the interplay between the development of nanoscale building blocks, product design, process design, and value chain integration is identified. A suggestion is made for an R&D model combining market pull and technology push as a way to quickly exploit the advantages in nanotechnology and translate these into customer benefits.     

Synthèse du mèthyl-1 diformyl-2,3 pyrrole,de la méthyl-1 pyrrolo[2,3-d] pyridazine et de la méthyl-1 oxo-6 (6h)cycloheptatrieno[b] pyrrole

This communication describes the synthesis of l-methyl-2,3-diformylpyrrole. This new compound is used to prepare a new heterocycle, l-methylcyclohepta[b]pyrrol-6-one and thus allows a new synthesis of l-methylpyrrolo[2,3-d]pyridazine.     

Self-assembly of tetrahedral and trigonal antiprismatic clusters [Fe4(L4)4] and [Fe6(L5)6] on the basis of trigonal tris-bidentate chelators

In a one-pot reaction, the tetranuclear iron chelate complex [Fe4(L4)4] 6 was generated from benzene-1,3,5-tricarboxylic acid trichloride (4), bis-tert-butyl malonate (5a), methyllithium, and iron(II) dichloride under aerobic conditions. Alternatively, hexanuclear iron chelate complex [Fe(L5)6] 7 was formed starting from bis-para-tolyl malonate (5b) by employing identical reaction conditions to those applied for the synthesis of 6. The clusters 6 and 7 are present as racemic mixtures of homoconfigurational (delta,delta,delta,delta)/(lambda,lambda,lambda,lambda)-fac or (delta,delta,delta,delta,delta,delta)/(lambda,lambda,lambda,lambda,lambda,lambda)-fac stereoisomers. The structures of 6 and 7 were unequivocally resolved by single-crystal X-ray analyses. The all-iron(III) character of 6 and 7 was determined by M?ssbauer spectroscopy.     

X-Ray Crystallographic Structure of the Cyclic Di-amino Acid Peptide: <Emphasis Type="Italic">N,N</Emphasis>′-Diacetyl-cyclo(Gly-Gly)

Abstract  

The cyclic di-amino acid peptide N,N′-diacetyl-cyclo(Gly-Gly), C₈H₁₀N₂O₄, crystallizes in the triclinic space group P[`1] P\bar{1} with unit cell parameters a = 9.4855(4) ?, b = 10.0250(3) ?, c = 10.0763(4) ?, α = 73.682(2)°, β = 82.816(2)°, γ = 81.733(2)°, V = 906.40(6) ?<sup>3</sup>, Z = 4 (2 molecules, A and B, per asymmetric unit), D<sub>c</sub> = 1.452 g cm<sup>−3</sup> and linear absorption coefficient 0.118 mm<sup>−1</sup>. The crystal structure determination was carried out with MoKα X-ray data measured at 120(2) K. In the final refinement cycle the data/restraints/parameter ratios were 4124/0/258 and goodness-of-fit on F<sup>2</sup> = 1.0008. Final R indices for [I > 2σ(I)] were R<sub>1</sub> = 0.0501, wR<sub>2</sub> = 0.1007 and R indices (all data) R<sub>1</sub> = 0.0864, wR<sub>2</sub> = 0.11180. The largest electron density difference peak and hole were 0.241 and −0.232 e ?<sup>−3</sup>, respectively. The DKP rings in both molecules A and B have boat conformations with pseudo mm2 (C<sub>2v</sub>) symmetry if the N atoms and CH<sub>2</sub> groups are considered identical. In each case, the prow and stern of the boat are the α-carbons C(3) and C(6). The overall molecular symmetry of molecules A and B is approximately C<sub>2</sub> with the twofold symmetry axis of the DKP boat being maintained through the centre of the DKP ring. Details of the molecular geometry are compared with that of the parent compound cyclo(Gly-Gly) in which the DKP ring is planar with exact symmetry [`1] \bar{1} (C_i).     

Optimal rigid body motions,part 2: Minimum time solutions

The time-optimal control of rigid-body angular rates is investigated in the absence of direct control over one of the angular velocity components. The existence of singular subarcs in the time-optimal trajectories is explored. A numerical survey of the optimality conditions reveals that, over a large range of boundary conditions, there are in general several distinct extremal solutions. A classification of extremal solutions is presented, and domains of existence of the extremal subfamilies are established in a reduced parameter space. A locus of Darboux points is obtained, and global optimality of the extremal solutions is observed in relation to the Darboux points. The continuous dependence of the optimal trajectories with respect to variations in control constraints is noted, and a procedure to obtain the time-optimal bang-bang solutions is presented.This work was supported in part by DARPA under Contract No. ACMP-F49620-87-C-0016, by SDIO/IST under Contract No. F49620-87-C0088, and by Air Force Grant AFOSR-89-0001.