All Resource articles – Page 82
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ResourceOn 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.
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ResourceOn This Day - Mar 03 : Joseph Wharton was born
He improved the process of refining nickel (Ni) and his company made the first pure nickel metal. Wharton was the driving force in establishing the zinc (Zn) and nickel metal industries in the United States.
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ResourceOn This Day - May 03 : George Thomson was born
Thomson shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1937 with Clinton Davisson for their discovery of the wave properties of electrons when diffracted by crystals. He was the son of Nobel laureate Joseph John Thompson.
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ResourceOn This Day - Jun 03 : Emmet Culligan died
He invented the Culligan water softener system that made water softening available to home users. These systems reduce the amount of calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg) and other metal cations found in hard water. He founded the Culligan international water treatment products company in 1936.
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ResourceOn This Day – Jul 03 : Discovery of bromine
The French chemist was an unknown young laboratory assistant when he discovered the element in seawater, which is a liquid at room temperature. This was independent to Carl Jacob Löwig’s preparation of bromine one year earlier. The word bromine comes from the Greek word bromos, meaning “stench”.
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ResourceOn This Day – Aug 03 : Platinum catalysis
He realised that a platinum (Pt) sponge could cause the ignition of hydrogen (H) at room temperature by lowering the activation energy. This effect was the precursor to the theory of catalysis, and in 1835 the term “catalyst” was coined by Swedish chemist Jacob Berzelius.
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ResourceOn This Day – Sep 03 : Fritz Pregl was born
He began research on bile acids in 1904. With only tiny yields to study, he pioneered micro analytical techniques and designed a new balance capable of weighing 20 grams to an accuracy of 0.001 milligrams. Pregl was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1923 for his efforts.
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ResourceOn This Day - Oct 03 : Charles Pedersen was born
He shared the 1987 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the synthesis of crown ethers. These are a group of compounds that can “recognize” each other and choose which other molecules to form complexes, much like the behaviour of molecules found in living organisms.
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ResourceOn This Day - Nov 03 : Antifouling paint patent
It was made from a mixture of a copper oxide (CuO), tar and naphtha, and offered protection against growth of barnacles and seaweed for twelve months. There are now concerns that copper oxide based antifouling paints are environmental pollutants, and replacements are being introduced.
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ResourceOn This Day - Dec 03 : Bhopal disaster
A leak of toxic methyl isocyanate gas occurred at the Union Carbide India pesticide plant. It caused almost 4000 deaths, and is considered to be one of the World’s worst industrial catastrophes.
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ResourceOn This Day - Mar 02 : Discovery of radioactivity
Becquerel discovered that potassium uranium sulfate crystals can produce images on photographic plates even when kept in the dark. He deduced that the crystals must spontaneously emit radiation, which earned him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903 along with Marie Curie. Related resources: 175 Faces of chemistry ...
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ResourceOn This Day - Apr 02 : Theodore Richards died
He determined accurate measurements of elemental atomic weights, suggesting the existence of isotopes. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1914 as recognition of his work.
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ResourceOn This Day - Jun 02 : Edward Elgar was born
Although he is best known for being a musical composer, Elgar was a keen amateur chemist who built a laboratory in his back garden and carried out experiments there. Some of his surviving musical manuscripts are still stained with chemicals!
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ResourceOn This Day – Aug 02 : Discovery of positrons
He was examining chamber photographs of cosmic rays when he realised that the tracks orientation revealed the existence of positively charged particles too small to be protons. These sub-atomic particles have the same mass as an electron, but with a positive charge.
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ResourceOn This Day – Sep 02 : Friedrich Ostwald was born
He was one of the founders of classical physical chemistry. In particular, Ostwald was a pioneer of electrochemistry and chemical dynamics. He won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1909 for his work on catalysis, chemical equilibrium, and reaction velocities.
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ResourceOn This Day - Oct 02 : First atomic clock
Atomic clocks keep time using the microwave signal that is emitted when electrons in atoms change energy levels. This early clock, the Atomicron, used the constant frequency from the oscillations of the caesium (Cs) atom at 9,192,631,830 MHz.
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ResourceOn This Day - Dec 02 : Atomic Age began
The first artificially initiated self-sustained nuclear fission reaction was engineered by the Italian scientist Enrico Fermi at the University of Chicago.
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ResourceOn This Day - May 01 : AC motor patented
Not only was this the first alternating current (AC) motor, but it also heralded a new system of power transmission, which is the basis for the mains power we use today. The Serbian-American physicist, engineer and inventor is recognised as one of the pioneers of electric power.
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ResourceOn This Day - Jun 01 : Flixborough disaster
A temporary pipe containing cyclohexane caught fire and burst. It left 28 people dead, 36 injured and around 1800 nearby buildings damaged. Consequently, UK government regulations in hazardous industrial processes were significantly tightened.
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ResourceOn This Day - Oct 01 : Thalidomide was marketed
This notorious drug was marketed as a mild sleeping pill that was safe even for pregnant women. It wasn’t until 1962 that the severe side effects were revealed, where it had caused the development of malformed limbs in babies.