All RSC Education articles in Non-EiC content – Page 9

Resource
On This Day - Oct 04 : Kenichi Fukui was born

His career was devoted to explaining the nature of chemical reactions. He shared the 1981 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his investigation into the mechanisms of chemical reactions. Specifically, this was for his work on the role of frontier orbitals, which have loosely bonded electrons.
Resource
On This Day - Nov 04 : Oak Ridge nuclear disaster

This was the world’s second nuclear reactor to achieve this status. However, from then on the reactor performed flawlessly. With a self-sustaining reaction, it produced a third of a ton of irradiated uranium (U) a day. The world’s first few grams of plutonium (Pu) were produced in just two months.
Resource
On This Day - Mar 05 : Emmett Culligan was born

He invented the Culligan water softener system, which made water softening available to home users. This system uses minerals called zeolites, which filter calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), and other metal cations from hard water.
Resource
On This Day - Apr 05 : Synthesis of morphine

Morphine was first isolated from dried poppy resin in the early 1800s and remains the best drug for relieving severe pain. Morphine is named after Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams.
Resource
On This Day - May 05 : Arthur Schawlow was born

His research focused on optics – in particular lasers and their use in spectroscopy. Schawlow shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1981 with Nicolaas Bloembergen and Kai Siegbahn for their contribution to the development of laser spectroscopy.
Resource
On This Day – Jul 05 : George de Hevesy died

He was awarded the 1943 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on radioisotopes and their use as tracers in studying the chemical processes within living systems. He also discovered the element hafnium (Hf) with Dick Coster in 1923.
Resource
On This Day – Aug 05 : Seymour Lipsky was born

He was the inventor of high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), which is a technique used to separate, purify and identify molecules. It is a highly sensitive method with a range of applications, such as detecting the presence of performance-enhancing drugs in urine samples.
Resource
On This Day – Sep 05 : Ludwig Boltzmann died

He was best known for his kinetic theory of gas particles. His statistical methods explained how properties of atoms could predict the visible properties such as thermal conductivity and diffusion. This helped to bridge the gap between the thermodynamics of a large system and at a molecular level.
Resource
On This Day - Oct 05 : Dirk Coster was born

He co-discovered hafnium (Hf), an element that was a mysterious blank in the periodic table for many years. Hafnium is used to make control rods for nuclear reactors because it can absorb neutrons.
Resource
On This Day - Nov 05 : 5000 year old beer

It was found at Godin Tepe in the Zagros Mountains of Iran, an important fortress on the Silk Road. Researchers found evidence of wine from around the same period, but it is thought that beer was the most popular beverage in lower Mesopotamia at the time.
Resource
On This Day - Mar 06 : Mendeleev's Periodic Table

Although this was not the first attempt to systematically order the chemical elements, Mendeleev’s table was unique, allowing him to predict undiscovered elements as well as revealing inaccuracies in some of the measured atomic weights.
Resource
On This Day - Apr 06 : Teflon invented

Teflon, which is the trade name for polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), was first made by American chemist Roy Plunkett by accident whilst working for DuPont. Teflon’s inert nature and extreme slipperiness has led to it being used in many applications, including non-stick saucepans.
Resource
On This Day - May 06 : Victor Grignard was born

He developed the use of organomagnesium halides, now known as Grignard reagents, as a new method to make carbon-carbon bonds. This important reaction is widely used in synthetic organic chemistry.
Resource
On This Day – Jul 06 : Oil rig destruction

The Piper Alpha was the biggest and oldest oil platform in the North Sea. The fire was initiated by a gas leak, and 167 people died. This was due to inadequate maintenance and safety procedures, and since then significant changes and improvements in these procedures have been made.
Resource
On This Day – Aug 06 : Mars rover landed

It arrived on the Red Planet after a 36-week flight for a two-year investigation. Curiosity is using its onboard chemistry lab (CheMin) to identify and measure the abundance of various minerals (drilled from rocks and scooped from the ground) to see if there really was life on Mars.
Resource
On This Day – Sep 06 : John Dalton was born

He is considered the founder of modern atomic theory because he was the first to propose that matter was composed of particles called atoms. He also discovered that at boiling point all liquids have the same saturated vapour pressure – the foundation for ‘Dalton’s law of partial pressures’.
Resource
On This Day - Oct 06 : Chemical from Coal Facility

The U.S.A uses coal instead of petroleum to produce acetic anhydride and other acetyl chemicals. These are important building blocks in the synthesis of a number of consumer products including plastics, textiles and photographic film.
Resource
On This Day - Nov 06 : Ian Heilbron was born

He investigated the natural synthesis of vitamin A and D, and worked on penicillin. Heilbron later became a scientific advisor to the government, and was knighted in 1946 in recognition of his contributions to academic and public life.
Resource
On This Day - Dec 06 : Nicolas Leblanc was born

He invented a method of making sodium bicarbonate from table salt (also known as sodium chloride, NaCl) that became one of the most important chemical processes of the nineteenth century.
Resource
On This Day - Mar 07 : The atomic nucleus revealed

The New Zealand chemist explained that when firing alpha particles at a thin sheet of gold, some particles bounced back. From this he deduced an atom has a hard, dense, positively charged centre: the nucleus. Related resources: Understanding how atoms are made up Royal Institution Christmas Lectures® 2012: ...