InfoChem
Clean energy
In this issue
Silver nitrate
Tom Westgate meets some chemists working
towards a fossil fuel-free future
Photography and mirrors
EMMA MCKENDRICK
so materials chemists can develop
our understanding of how these
materials work and in turn, help
design better devices.
Flat battery
Chemists have already provided
one great advance by developing
the thin, small, light, but powerful
rechargeable lithium batteries that
power our mobile phones, laptops
and other gadgets. According to
Saiful Islam, the next challenge is
to make even more powerful, faster
charging versions to run electric cars.
He describes the classic
lithium battery as being like an
electrochemical sandwich, where
the ‘bread’ is the electrodes, and the
Interstitial oxide ions (red) squeeze through channels in the fuel cell structure to reach the fuel
‘filling’ is the electrolyte. When the
The world’s population is growing, meaning we need more
battery is plugged in to charge, lithium
and more energy to drive our cars, light and heat our homes, ions (Li+) move from the positive electrode (cathode)
and power our high-tech gadgets. To produce this energy we through the electrolyte to the negative electrode (anode).
mostly burn fossil fuels, but our supplies will start to run out
As it does this, Li+ captures electrons from the power
in the next few decades. Fossil fuel energy also comes at a
source, and stores their energy. In the charged battery, the
cost, producing the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide which
lithium is ready to move in the opposite direction (anode to
has been blamed for changes in the global climate.
cathode), releasing the electrons giving power to whichever
device is connected.
We will need cleaner, sustainable ways to generate and
store energy, and we will need them soon. Chemists are
playing their part in helping to develop the clean energy
technologies that could allow us to kick the fossil fuel habit,
before we run out for good.
‘One single technology will not be the solution.’ says
Professor Saiful Islam of the University of Bath, a chemist
who is working on materials for the next generation of
sustainable energy production and storage devices. ‘The
performance of the devices relies on the materials,’ he says,
ISSUE 130 | SEPTEMBER 2011
Most batteries currently use cathodes made of LiCoO2,
but Co is expensive and toxic. To make batteries more
powerful, affordable and safe, better cathode materials are
needed. Saiful Islam says the ‘hottest’ candidate, already
being used in some new electric cars, is LiFePO4, which is
cheaper and contains strong P–O bonds making it safer for
use on the road.
He believes there is still room for improvement in battery
cathode materials and explains that their operation relies
Apollo 13
Lithium hydroxide saves
the day
Backyard chemistry
The power of atmospheric
pressure
A day in the life of...
Adam Hunt – passionate
about chemistry
Plus…
Puzzles and competitions
Editor
Karen J Ogilvie
Assistant editor
David Sait
Science correspondent
Josh Howgego
Layout
Scott Ollington
Publisher
Bibiana Campos-Seijo
InfoChem is a supplement to
Education in Chemistry and is
published six times a year by
the Royal Society of Chemistry,
Thomas Graham House,
Cambridge, CB4 0WF.
01223 420066
email: [email protected]
www.rsc.org/infochem
© The Royal Society of Chemistry,
2011. ISSN: 1752-0533
www.rsc.org/infochem
Registered Charity Number 207890
0511INFO - FEATURE_Clean Energy.indd 1
14/09/2011 15:57:56
electron
flow
Key
load
oxygen, O2
oxide ion, O2-
oxygen, O2
proton, H+
hydrogen, H2
water, H2O
excess, O2
cathode electrolyte
Generating electricity
in a solid oxide fuel cell
(SOFC)
anode
on efficient transport of lithium ions. ‘We are trying to
understand how this happens, on an atomic scale, so
we can maximize the lithium diffusion properties in new
materials,’ he says.
Li+ is a very small and light ion, making it difficult to
pinpoint in a crystal using standard experiments with
beams of x-rays or neutrons. So his group turns to
what he describes as ‘virtual microscopes’: powerful
supercomputers. ‘We know the physics and chemistry of
the structure and bonding, so these rules can be used to
calculate the forces within the material,’ he explains.
Pollution-free power
The efficient, powerful batteries
of the future will still need a clean
source of power to charge them
up. Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs)
generate electricity from hydrogen
and oxygen, and produce only
hydrogen, H2
water as a by-product. Like lithium
batteries, they too are made up
of an electrolyte sandwiched
between two electrodes. At the
cathode, oxygen gas picks up
water, H2O
electrons and is reduced to oxide
ions (O2-). The O2- ions then
migrate through the electrolyte
to the anode, where they react
with hydrogen gas to form water,
generating electrons that flow back
around an external circuit towards
the cathode providing useful electrical power that can be
used for homes and other buildings.
Cathode Reaction: O2 + 4e–  2O2–
Anode Reaction: 2H2 + 2O2–  2H2O + 4e–
Overall Cell Reaction: 2H2 + O2  2H2O
‘The key material in the fuel cell is the electrolyte,’ says
Dr Peter Slater of the University of Birmingham. They are
usually made from inorganic, crystalline materials which
need very high temperatures (above 800°C) to operate. Part
of the challenge for chemists is to find new materials that
can operate at lower temperatures (approx 500–700°C), so
they may become cheaper to run and more durable.
Peter Slater and Saiful Islam’s teams work together in
the search for ideal electrolyte materials. Saiful Islam’s
calculations reveal the exact path the ions take through
the materials Peter Slater’s team produce. ‘It’s important to
understand why certain materials conduct ions well, so we
can learn how to make better materials,’ he says.
Lithium ions (gold)
squeeze their way in a
curved path through the
LiFePO4 structure.
Saiful Islam’s group used the supercomputers’ numbercrunching to calculate the paths of lithium ions through
LiFePO4, with a surprising result: ‘We were the first to
predict that it does not go in a straight path, but in
curves,’ He said. This is very valuable information to help
understand how the electrode works and to develop new,
better materials.
2
He compares moving O2– through the electrolyte to trying
to get from one side of a packed concert hall to the other.
One way is to keep some ‘seats’ empty, so there is always a
space to move into. This can be done by introducing defects
where a few O2– ions are missing from the electrolyte
crystal. But the two teams have shown that some structures
also have room for the O2– to squeeze through gaps
between atoms, like someone pushing their way between
full rows of seats in the hall. Understanding how oxide ions
travel through electrolyte materials will help chemists to
design better fuel cells.
EMMA MCKENDRICK
Peter Slater’s team prepare new electrolyte compounds
with built-in channels between the atoms, to guide the O2–
through the material. They compare the materials they make
by measuring the conductance, or how fast the O2– flows
through. They also examine how the conductivity changes
at different temperatures, and in different atmospheres such
as air or hydrogen.
InfoChem
0511INFO - FEATURE_Clean Energy.indd 2
14/09/2011 15:58:14
Sun worshippers
SOFCs are a promising source of clean energy for buildings,
but they can’t provide for all our needs. Renewable
sources such as solar power will also have a role to play in
providing us with cheap, clean energy. More energy from
the sun strikes the surface of the earth in an hour than the
entire population of the planet needs in a year. Finding
materials to cheaply and efficiently turn more of this energy
into electricity is one of the biggest prizes for materials
chemists.
Line up!
Another important challenge for materials chemists in solar
power is to control how individual molecules combine with
Chemists working on
solar power materials can
control the wavelength
of light that is absorbed
by their molecules (and
create any colour of the
rainbow...)
WEI YOU
Solar cells are another kind of electrochemical sandwich.
This time, the light absorbing material forms the sandwich
Building up these blocks into long polymer chains means
they can easily be processed into thin sheets like clingfilm,
using processes that are already used for conventional
plastics. Plastic solar cells also do not require the same
purity as silicon in manufacturing, keeping costs lower.
These lightweight, flexible solar panels of the near future
would be highly portable, and could be built into many
more settings, offering free power even when we are on the
move.
filling between two electrodes. In commercially available
solar panels that you can see on the roofs of buildings, the
filling is semiconducting crystalline silicon. This material
works because its electrons are free to absorb the sun’s
light energy and move into a high-energy state. The excited
electrons carry a negative charge, while they leave behind
positive charges called ‘holes’. These opposite charges
can migrate to opposite electrodes, creating a voltage and
giving electrical power.
FERNANDO URIBE-ROMO AND WILLIAM DICHTEL
But manufacturing the silicon into solar cells is extremely
expensive because of the high purity needed: even one
atom of impurity can affect performance. However, the
electronic structure of semiconducting silicon can be
replicated using other semiconducting materials, such
as nanoparticles of cadmium telluride (CdTe), or even
polymers which contain a large number of alternating
single and double carbon to carbon bonds.
These materials work as solar cells but are not as efficient
as silicon and are currently much more expensive. The
task of making them better and cheaper ‘really goes to
fundamental control of their chemistry,’ said Professor
William Dichtel of Cornell University, New York. First, he
explains, they need to be designed to absorb a wide range
of wavelengths of light. Next, the material must have a way
to keep the electrons and holes apart so they can migrate
to the electrodes. ‘These are simple processes, but new
materials need to do them well,’ he said. He points out
that chemists can contribute a lot to the search for lightabsorbing materials, because they have been designing
coloured dyes for hundreds of years by using different
arrangements of C=C and C-C bonds.
Professor Wei You of the University of North Carolina
describes his group’s approach to this challenge as like
molecular lego, building with different structures that all
contain alternating C-C and C=C bonds. ‘You can make
whatever you like, putting the building blocks together,
understand what works well, and use this as a rationale to
make them better,’ he says.
one another in the solid state. This is as important to the
solar power material as the structures of the molecules
themselves. The charges generated by light have to be able
to hop easily from one molecule to the next on the way to
the electrodes. If the molecules are randomly ordered, the
charge hopping will be restricted.
William Dichtel’s group tackles this problem by designing
large three-dimensional networks of light absorbing units
joined by covalent bonds to lock them in place. Other
researchers try to make their molecules or polymer chains
line up in an orderly fashion by adding specific groups
to the molecules to control the forces between them. His
materials also have built-in spaces to accommodate a
second material that can accept the excited electrons and
channel them to the electrode.
‘It’s unclear which type of material will win out’ in the
race to replace silicon solar cells, he says. Polymers,
nanocrystals, or hybrid combinations are all vying to be
the best, but he believes they will all be useful: ‘there will
probably be enough niche applications suitable for all of
these technologies’.
Batteries
included
Join Saiful Islam for a
fascinating lecture
Watts new with clean
energy? Batteries
included on the evening
of 23 November in
London.
Saiful will illustrate how
scientists use structural
and modelling techniques
to help understand the
fascinating properties of
crystalline materials,
which are used to create
greener technologies.
rsc.org/mcdschools
Molecular building blocks
are designed to assemble
on electrodes into
ordered networks ideal for
transporting charge
InfoChem
0511INFO - FEATURE_Clean Energy.indd 3
3
14/09/2011 15:58:35
Win
stuff
em
InfoCh
fe
r li
Water fo
ists
and chem
chemistry r
tigates the
wate
gate inves to access clean
le
Tom West
more peop
helping
Magnificent molecules
Phillip Broadwith highlights one of his favourite molecules.
In this issue: silver nitrate
| JUNE 2011
ISSUE 129
issue
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of
The source
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The science
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Plus ...
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Prize puzzle
ANDREA
SCHAFER
chemistry
careers
chemnet
events
cutting-edg
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chemistry
on the web
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Karen Ogilvie
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issue 58
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Welcome
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fochem
.rsc.org/in
www
By 2030,
the
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to over eigh
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Stephanie
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Chemnet
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Number
207890
21/06/201
In the late 19th century, anyone
wanting to pursue the latest
photographic craze had to be
able to handle a bewildering array
of chemicals to prepare, fix and
develop photographic plates.
Often, each photographer would
mix their solutions to a unique
recipe, tweaked as their experience
grew. Whatever the recipe, what
was needed was a chemical that
changed colour on exposure to light.
1 12:38:13
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Chemical acrostic
no.20 winner
The winner was Lucy Browne
from St George’s School for
Girls, Edinburgh, who correctly
identified the metal ore as
haematite.
4
Silver halide salts are ideal – when
illuminated they rapidly turn black
as they decompose to silver metal.
The problem from a photographer’s point of view is
that they are insoluble, so they’re difficult to apply in
thin films to photographic plates; and too sensitive,
so can’t be stored easily for a long time. The answer?
Silver nitrate, AgNO3.
Silver nitrate itself is not light-sensitive enough
to be used directly in photography, but this is an
advantage when it comes to storage. However, it
is soluble and easily displaces other metals from
their salts, so the sensitive silver halides could be
produced just before being popped into the camera.
In the earlier ‘wet plate’ processes, solutions of
salts like potassium bromide were applied to glass
plates, which would then be dunked into a silver
nitrate bath to displace the potassium with silver
before exposing it in the camera. The whole process
needed to be done while the plate was still wet,
which was fiddly and meant that taking a camera on
holiday was a major undertaking.
All of that changed when an American called George
Eastman invented the Kodak process in 1880. Many
photographers of the time were experimenting with
dry glass plates, and Eastman
developed a particularly effective
way of immobilising silver salts on
plates using gelatine – the same
protein that gives jelly its wobbly
consistency. The same silver
chemistry was needed to make the
sensitive silver halide salts, but the
plates remained just as sensitive
to light once they dried – as long
as they were kept in the dark.
It was Eastman’s next
development that really brought
photography to the masses –
flexible photographic film. After
1888 this meant anyone could buy a camera, take a
series of pictures, then send it back to the company
to be developed.
As photographic film became more complex,
introducing different compounds to make colours
and ever faster and finer quality crystals to make
sharper images, still relied on silver salts. These
salts were almost invariably prepared from silver
nitrate – its solubility and lower sensitivity to light
making it ideal for the job.
The connection between silver nitrate and light
doesn’t end there. If you want to make a glass surface
into a shiny, reflective mirror, one way to do it is to
coat the back side with silver metal. But how do you
get the silver on there? If you dissolve silver nitrate
in water and add sodium hydroxide, you form silver
oxide. Adding ammonia then converts this into a
diammine-silver(I) complex – a silver ion bonded to
two ammonia molecules. Adding sugar to this mixture
reduces the silver to its lustrous metallic form, and
deposits it on the surface as a perfect, shiny mirror.
All this is reminiscent of the Tollen’s reagent test for an
aldehyde, often called the ‘silver mirror’ test which you
may have done at school. It can be used to distinguish
between ketones and aldehydes, since aldehydes
are much more easily oxidised to carboxylic acids.
The reagent is initially clear and colourless but add
an aldehyde and the inside of the test tube is quickly
coated in a layer of shiny silver metal.
Check out the podcasts from Chemistry World. Each
week a leading scientist or author tells the story
behind a different compound.
www.chemistryworld.org/compounds
InfoChem
0511INFO - Magnificent molecules.indd 4
14/09/2011 16:01:59
On-screen chemistry
...
ins...
plains
expla
re ex
Hare
an Ha
athan
Jon
Jonath
Explosion
It appeared that a heater and stirrer in the CM’s oxygen
tank did not turn off correctly and created the explosive
pressures which lead to the accident. Fortunately
the tank exploded out into space rather than into
the spacecraft. However, this meant the astronauts
were now in a critical situation as the CM could no
longer maintain a clean air supply. The crew moved
into the Lunar Module (LM) and used its resources
as a ‘lifeboat’. Without this option they would almost
certainly have died.
Mission Control at Houston considered all of
the possible flight plans and combinations of
engine firing which could bring the astronauts
home safely. The best option would still take
four days... The LM was designed to support
two people for two days on the moon, not
three people for a four day trip home. This
meant they had very limited electrical power,
heating and drinking water, which must be
conserved. They had enough oxygen for the trip but
the critical issue was carbon dioxide.
Too much CO2
Normally about 0.04% of air is CO2. As the level of CO2
rises, it causes our respiratory rate to increase. High
levels of CO2 can lead to headaches, confusion and
eventually loss of consciousness.2 About 3% of expired
air is CO2, so in a small space such as the LM, the levels
will quickly rise.
NASA
It is 1970 and Apollo 13 blasts-off successfully on the
US’s third mission to land on the Moon. Two days out
and 200 000 miles from Earth, an oxygen tank ruptures,
damaging other tanks and the spacecraft’s electrical
system in the Command Module (CM) prompting the
crew’s immortal lines ‘Houston, we’ve had a problem’. For
the three astronauts, the mission now is to return to Earth
safely. Hollywood tells the story in the film Apollo 13,
where Tom Hanks plays commander Jim Lovell.1
PICTURE CREDIT
Apollo 13 – lithium hydroxide saves the day
Apollo 13 mission
badge
The LM used cylindrical canisters of lithium hydroxide
(anhydrous) in the air circulating system as scrubbers to
remove the excess CO2 (lithium carbonate and water are
produced) and keep the air clean.
2LiOH + CO2 → Li2CO3 + H2O
However, there were not enough spare canisters in the
LM to support the crew for four days. The CM had an
adequate supply but these units didn’t fit the equipment
in the LM as they were the wrong shape. The crew had
to ‘lash-up’ a device to solve this problem using a space
suit hose, cardboard, tape and the extra canisters.
NASA
After a nail-biting blackout period as the lunar module
re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere, the LM and her crew
splashed-down safely in the Pacific Ocean. Despite
the complex trajectory calculations, engine firing
and computer problems on the way home, the crew
ultimately survived due to the little canisters of LiOH.
References
1 Apollo 13, Columbia, 1995.
2 Frances Ashcroft, Life at the extremes. London:
Flamingo, 2001
Apollo 13 space craft
launch
InfoChem
0511INFO- On screen Chemistry.indd 5
5
06/09/2011 08:21:49
Health &
Safety
Backyard chemistry
Safety glasses should be
worn. Ensure that no one is
standing in the path of the
flying ruler.
Prof Hal Sosabowski presents
experiments you can do on your own
In this issue: the power of atmospheric
pressure
In a previous Backyard chemistry we saw that
rapidly cooling the gas in a drinks can will
cause it to collapse. In that experiment we
found out that it is not merely pressure that
causes the can to deform, but a difference
in pressure between the inside and outside
of the can. As we reduced the pressure
inside the can, the pressure balance was
disturbed and the can collapsed.
In this experiment, we are going to
investigate the power of atmospheric
pressure, in less than a second.
HALA JAWAD
Atmospheric pressure is caused, literally,
by the weight of the air above you. To
understand it better, let’s use the analogy of water
pressure.
As you go deeper under water, the weight of liquid
above your head pressing down on you increases. The
deeper you go, the more water there is pressing down
on you and the greater the pressure.
This is the same with air pressure, the higher you are,
the lower the pressure. This explains why you can’t
make a decent cup of tea at the summit of Mount
Everest! As the air pressure is so low at 8848 m, water
boils at just 69°C. In fact it’s about 26 kPa compared to
0
The pressure at the bottom
of the Mariana Trench in the
mid Atlantic – about 11 km
underwater – is a whopping
108 MPa, that is, about 1000
times higher than standard
atmospheric pressure.
6
2000
Depth in metres (m)
Did you
know?
Mt. Everest
(8848 m above
sea level)
4000
6000
8000
Mariana
Trench
10 000
11 305
Challenger Deep (11 035 m below sea level)
100 kPa at sea level. Remember, boiling point is simply
the temperature at which the vapour pressure of the
boiling liquid equals the surrounding pressure.
Materials
You will need:
broadsheet newspaper
standard 1 m wooden ruler
safety glasses
Method
Place the ruler on a table and let one end hang over
the edge by about 10 cm. For the sake of the exercise,
strike the end of the ruler that is hanging over the edge
of the table with the edge of your palm, taking care
that no one is standing in the ruler’s trajectory. As you
might expect, the ruler will fly off the table.
Now repeat the experiment, but this time place a full
double page of the broadsheet newspaper over the
part of the ruler that rests on the table. Again, strike
the ruler with the palm of your hand. The ruler will not
propel the paper off the table and will in fact either be
broken, or perhaps tear the paper.
The science
The ruler is held down by the large surface area
of the paper. As you know, pressure is defined as
force divided by area. So, the downward force of
atmospheric pressure, spread over the large surface
area of the newspaper, keeps the set-up pinned to the
table. The upward thrust of the ruler, provided by your
arm, is concentrated in a small area of the paper, so it’s
no match for the downward force of the atmosphere.
You could think of the force as a huge column of air
(about 400 km tall) resting on top of the newspaper.
You can even calculate the weight of the atmosphere
pushing down on the paper. Since atmospheric
pressure is approximately 100 kPa, you can calculate
the area of the paper and work out the total weight
pushing down on the paper. My newspaper is roughly
0.75 m by 0.85 m. That’s 0.64 m2. That means there are
about 6.4 kg of weight pressing down on the paper!
InfoChem
0511INFO - A day in the life of_BackYard Chemistry.indd 6
06/09/2011 13:51:38
A day in the life of
Adam Hunt
Pathway to
success
2011–present,
regional coordinator,
education, RSC.
2007–2011,
coordinator of education for
SATRO Ltd.
RSC regional coordinator
Adam Hunt is a man passionate about
communicating the diverse range of careers
that chemistry can lead to. He is now a regional
education coordinator for the RSC. He tells
Josh Howgego what a typical day at work looks
like for him.
Matchmaker
Adam’s passion for communicating science arose
when he became a chemistry technician in a high
school. After completing his degree, Adam thought
that working life might be one full of analysing lab
samples. However, through helping teach chemistry,
he began to realise what a breadth of options there
really are.
He rose to the challenge and went on to work at a
science festival where he organised events to promote
and provide information on careers in chemistry. In
that role Adam worked with a wide range chemists. He
now works for the RSC educational division, where he
uses his knowledge to ‘matchmake’ these people with
schools and educational events where they can share
their enthusiasm for chemistry.
Adam enjoys travelling as part of his job, and a good
thing too, as he does lots of it. He is responsible for
the Royal Society of Chemistry’s (RSC’s) education
activities across the whole of south east England. He
visits schools, colleges and universities across that
area, developing relationships with teachers to see
how the RSC can support their teaching.
As part of his everyday work, he helps teachers to make
contacts with his network of professional chemists.
He also organises careers talks for students as well
as providing printed resources and other guidance.
Whatever help a school needs with chemistry, Adam
can normally arrange someone who can assist. He can
also advise teachers about funding for educational
projects (the RSC itself provides this in some cases)
and writing proposals to apply for grants. To make all of
this work, he needs really good interpersonal skills. He
uses his time management skills so that his ideas and
input can be delivered in good time for school events,
ensuring that everything runs smoothly.
2002–2005,
BSc in conservation biology,
University of Aberdeen.
2001–2002,
High school science
technician, Hampshire.
1997–2001,
BSc in applied biosciences
and chemistry at the
Robert Gordon University,
Aberdeen.
1997,
Scottish Highers in maths,
english, chemistry, physics
and biology.
Speed networking
One of Adam’s proudest achievements was organising
what he terms ‘speed networking.’ This event put 15
or so chemistry professionals in a room with teachers
who take turns to chat with each of them for five to ten
minutes. In a very short space of time, each teacher is
aware of 15 career opportunities for chemistry students.
If each teacher then tells just 30 students, that’s
something like 500 people who now know more about
where chemistry can take you. It’s a very effective tool
for learning and raising the awareness of careers in
chemistry.
Not a black art
The message Adam wants us to take away is that
chemistry is not a black art. It’s an integral part of
many jobs, from the production of household products
like hair gels and cleaning sprays to the intrigue of
investigative forensic science.
oChem
You can download InfoChem at www.rsc.org/inf
and copy it for use within schools
0511INFO - A day in the life of_BackYard Chemistry.indd 7
2005–2007,
coordinator of TechFest
science festival.
InfoChem
7
06/09/2011 07:59:47
£25 of tokens to be won
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Prize wordsearch no. 58
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Find the 31 words/expressions associated with reusing liquid
crystal displays hidden in this grid contributed by Bert Neary.
Words read in any direction, but are always in a straight line. Some
letters may be used more than once. The unused letters, read in
order, will spell a further 8-letter word.
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Send your answers to the editor by Monday 10 October. A randomly
chosen correct answer will win a £25 Amazon voucher.
June prize wordsearch no. 57 winner
The winner was Lauren Shaw from King Edward VI High School for Girls.
The 9-letter word was MAGNESIUM.
Name
School name
Your answer
Your email
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APPLIED FIELD
BIOCOMPATIBILITY
DATA
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ELECTRICAL IMPULSE
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TAC
TEMPERATURE
THIN FILM
WASTE MATERIAL
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WEEE DIRECTIVE
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0511INFO - PUZZLES.indd 1
06/09/2011 08:16:53