{"id":42386,"date":"2025-06-04T21:44:50","date_gmt":"2025-06-05T02:44:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=42386"},"modified":"2025-06-04T21:44:50","modified_gmt":"2025-06-05T02:44:50","slug":"word-of-the-day-1042","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2025\/06\/04\/word-of-the-day-1042\/","title":{"rendered":"Word Of The Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mechanochemistry<\/em>:<\/p>\n

Mechanochemistry refers to the coupling of chemical reactions with mechanical forces. [“Mechanochemistry: Fundamental Principles and Applications<\/a>,” <\/em>Wiley Advanced<\/strong>]
\n<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Noted in “How an ancient alchemy technique is transforming modern chemistry<\/em><\/a>,” Hayley Bennett, NewScientist<\/strong><\/em> (24 May 2025, paywall):<\/p>\n

Chemistry creates many of the wonders of modern life, from the medicines that heal us to the screens with which we communicate. When researchers want to make these things from scratch, they often start by assuming they must dissolve their materials. But mechanochemistry, the burgeoning field [Tomislav Fri\u0161\u010di\u0107 of the University of Birmingham, UK] is fascinated by, shows this isn\u2019t always necessary. \u201cMechanochemistry gives you the intellectual freedom to think: \u2018Let me just try this reaction by grinding it\u2019,\u201d says Fri\u0161\u010di\u0107. \u201cAnd, in many cases, it works.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bonus!<\/p>\n

As well as creating new chemicals, mechanochemistry can be destructive \u2013 in a good way. At Utrecht University in the Netherlands,\u00a0Ina Vollmer<\/a>\u2019s lab has been meticulous in trying to work out what happens when plastic waste\u00a0is broken down in a ball mill. Vollmer came to mechanochemistry looking for a greener way to take spent plastics like polyethylene and polypropylene and turn them back into their chemical building blocks. \u201cWe were really thinking about it for circularity and recycling, to make these polymers again,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Such\u00a0chemical recycling is already possible<\/a>, but it requires temperatures of around 300\u00b0C (570\u00b0F), meaning plastics are usually melted and reshaped instead. However, Vollmer\u2019s team recently succeeded at doing it at room temperature using an\u00a0ingenious milling system<\/a>\u00a0in which the catalysts driving the reactions are stuck to the\u00a0balls themselves. They can throw in pellets of plastic \u2013 from old garden chairs and toys, for example \u2013 and get out hydrocarbon gases like propene. According to Vollmer, the team is now building a bigger ball mill and founding a start-up to commercialise the process. It is a stunning example of what mechanochemistry can do, says Fri\u0161\u010di\u0107.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mechanochemistry: Mechanochemistry refers to the coupling of chemical reactions with mechanical forces. [“Mechanochemistry: Fundamental Principles and Applications,” Wiley Advanced] Noted in “How an ancient alchemy technique is transforming modern chemistry,” Hayley Bennett, NewScientist (24 May 2025, paywall): Chemistry creates many of the wonders of modern life, from the medicines that \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42386"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42387,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42386\/revisions\/42387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}