Dec 23 2009
Chemists must be aware of the heat flow that accompanies their reactions; otherwise, disastrous consequences can occur during practices such as industrial scale-up of chemical production yields. Heat can be experimentally measured with a calorimeter-an insulated vessel that tracks temperature variations. If there are more than two processes occurring within a reaction, however, it is very difficult to separate the total heat change into individual contributions.
Now, Martin Tjahjono, Effendi Widjaja and Marc Garland from the A*STAR Institute of Chemical and Engineering Sciences in Singapore have combined calorimetry with vibrational spectroscopy—a technique that measures how molecules respond to certain light frequencies—to identify real-time heat evolutions during single and multiple chemical processes1. This methodology promises to transform investigations of complex systems; it will also generate safer and more efficient manufacturing routes.
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