Most Convoluted Crystal Ever Made Has Enough Surface Area To Cover A Desk, A Gram Could Cover a Foot - Polidicks

Everyone's mind is boggled by what the hell it even is, but I want to know what its applications are. Aside from the natural gas thing it mentioned; I mean, this sounds like it's either something with a fuckton of uses or just another super-cool-but-super-useless thing science has found.

[QUOTE=FunnyBunny;37689127]Is that a metric or imperial skyscraper?[/QUOTE] Impetrical

[QUOTE=sltungle;37684509]It's not a difficult concept. Just imagine a cube that's, let's say 2 units wide, tall, and deep - it's total surface area is 24 units squared, and its total volume is 8 units cubed. If you imagine cutting that block up into 8 smaller cubes (each 1 unit wide, tall and deep) the total volume of your cubes is still the same (8 units cubed), but all of a sudden your surface area is larger - double, actually, at 48 units squared. Basically, the rate and nature of chemical reactions is due in large part to the surfaces of reacting materials (because that's where the reactants are actually making contact - at their boundaries; their surfaces). If you increase the surface area of something, the reaction rate increases quite markedly because there's simply more reaction surfaces available.[/QUOTE] This is true in some situations. Not all of a surface is necessarily reactive. You have specific points where certain conditions, bonds, ligand interactions and other intermolecular forces are able to create an ideal spot for a reaction to take place. You have different elements and species that can create electron deficient or electron rich zones that are ideal for these reactions. If you look at my avatar that is a Molybdenum (IV) Sulfide segment. It creates sheets like graphite in these triplet layer states. Molybdenum metal in the center with 3 sulfur on top and on bottom. The active sites (reactive sites) are on the edge where the Molybdenum metal is exposed. So if you make a huge sheet of this MoS2 you have a HUUUGE surface area, but a relatively small active site. Now if you shrink this MoS2 sheet down to several nanometers (what I do in my lab) you start getting a large active site to terrace site ratio. So overall surface area doesn't necessarily correlate to increased reactivity.

[QUOTE=Nitro836;37685073]Holy shit, science. Next thing we know we can engineer ourselves an actual hammerspace.[/QUOTE] Not really. It's not that there's more space inside of the crystal than there is outside. It's that the surface area of the... lattice or whatever is disproportionately huge compared to the total volume. Think catalytic converter or any heat sink. All those little folds, nooks and crannies to let as much material contact a surface as possible. It's kind of like that except on a molecular scale.

[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;37684473]How can you consistently define the surface area of a molecule[/QUOTE] That bothered me too. It's like measuring the length of a coastline, where it gets exponentially longer the more accurate you are.

For the scientist-types in this thread, does this have the potential to become a house-hold material to use for a lot of applications? So when we run out of oil to make plastic, could this take over for it?

[QUOTE=CMB Unit 01;37689966]For the scientist-types in this thread, does this have the potential to become a house-hold material to use for a lot of applications? So when we run out of oil to make plastic, could this take over for it?[/QUOTE] Could this have potential to become a house-hold material? Possible, I don't know enough about it, but could someone find a use for it? Absolutely. This won't replace oil in plastic manufacturing though. Also, one of the key things in this story is that they used a different activation technique to actually acquire the large surface area. The NU-110 isn't necessarily the key thing in the story.

you're all stupid

[QUOTE=Squad;37689418]This is true in some situations. Not all of a surface is necessarily reactive. You have specific points where certain conditions, bonds, ligand interactions and other intermolecular forces are able to create an ideal spot for a reaction to take place. You have different elements and species that can create electron deficient or electron rich zones that are ideal for these reactions. If you look at my avatar that is a Molybdenum (IV) Sulfide segment. It creates sheets like graphite in these triplet layer states. Molybdenum metal in the center with 3 sulfur on top and on bottom. The active sites (reactive sites) are on the edge where the Molybdenum metal is exposed. So if you make a huge sheet of this MoS2 you have a HUUUGE surface area, but a relatively small active site. Now if you shrink this MoS2 sheet down to several nanometers (what I do in my lab) you start getting a large active site to terrace site ratio. So overall surface area doesn't necessarily correlate to increased reactivity.[/QUOTE] Okay, to be precise, sure, but in GENERAL increasing the surface area increases the reaction rate. If we're trying to explain a concept to laymen, don't over-complicate it with the little details and the exceptions to the rule. Although granted what you're talking about is pretty cool. However, that said, what you're talking about is basically one of the fundamental concepts of nanotech and nanoscience - the smaller something gets, the larger its surface area to volume ratio gets.

What it says about these very porous molecules having potential applications for storing natural gas is intriguing, and could be handy for gaseous fuel storage. But the real question is this; would it work with hydrogen gas, and can the molecules withstand the heat and pressure of combustion engines? If so, then HydroPowder could be a future fuel, if these crystal nanocages act like sand or powder and pour as such. But if they don't fully disintegrate within combustion engines, the resultant dust or smoke might prove to be an airborne health hazard similar to asbestos dust, unless a catalytic converter or exhaust trap is used to filter out the potentially hazardous molten molecules. Nonetheless, this is actually a pretty awesome discovery for fuel technology, if you look at it that way.