The chemistry is right: A look back at the year 2024
This year, researchers have once again provided some surprises. From groundbreaking discoveries to innovative applications - chemistry surprised us again in 2024 with amazing advances. Before we take a well-deserved Christmas break, let's look at some of these exciting developments at a glance. More detailed information can be found below the info graphic. We hope you enjoy reading and wish you happy holidays and a happy new year!
World’s First Giga-level Solid-State Lithium Ceramic Battery production plant opened
ProLogium Technology, a global leader in solid-state battery innovation, inaugurated its Taoyuan (Taiwan) factory, marking a significant milestone in the battery industry.
Solid-state batteries (SSBs) have gained in importance in recent years and almost all well-known OEMs mention the technology on their development roadmaps, sometimes with quite specific dates for their implementation. Despite the promising prospects of solid-state battery technology, like short loading times, as well as increased reach and higher fire safety, only a few solid-state battery cells have been commercialized. The challenges lie not only in the material and cell concepts themselves, but especially in the production processes, some of which differ significantly from those of conventional lithium-ion batteries. ProLogium Technology, a global leader in solid-state battery innovation, inaugurated its Taoyuan (Taiwan) factory, marking a significant milestone in the battery industry.
Further information:
EU Mission “Restore our Ocean and Waters” receives €126.9 million
The European Commission is investing in 26 new projects to help protect and restore the health of our oceans and waters.
The EU Mission "Restore our Ocean and Waters" aims to protect and restore the health of our ocean and waters through research and innovation, citizen engagement and blue investments with a 2030 target. The Mission’s approach will address the ocean and waters as one and play a key role in achieving climate neutrality and restoring nature.
The European Commission announced 26 new projects that will receive €126.9 million to contribute to the EU Mission ‘Restore our Ocean and Waters. The 26 new projects count 346 beneficiaries from 37 countries, including SMEs, research institutions, local authorities, higher or secondary education establishments and businesses. The projects involve 26 EU Member States and 9 Associated Countries, with actions from the Baltic and North Sea, through the Danube River and Black Sea, Mediterranean Sea, and across to the Atlantic.
Further information:
Nobel Prize for Chemistry 2024
The diversity of life testifies to proteins’ amazing capacity as chemical tools. They control and drive all the chemical reactions that together are the basis of life. Proteins also function as hormones, signal substances, antibodies and the building blocks of different tissues.
“One of the discoveries being recognized this year concerns the construction of spectacular proteins. The other is about fulfilling a 50-year-old dream: predicting protein structures from their amino acid sequences. Both of these discoveries open up vast possibilities,” says Heiner Linke, Chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry.
Source: Press release from nobelzprize.org
Code of protein structures cracked
One half of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Demis Hassabis and John Jumper for predicting the structure of almost all known proteins with the successful utilization of artificial intelligence.
In proteins, amino acids are linked together in long strings that fold up to make a three-dimensional structure, which is decisive for the protein’s function. Since the 1970s, researchers had tried to predict protein structures from amino acid sequences, but this was notoriously difficult. However, four years ago, there was a stunning breakthrough.
In 2020, Demis Hassabis and John Jumper presented an AI model called AlphaFold2. With its help, they have been able to predict the structure of virtually all the 200 million proteins that researchers have identified. Since their breakthrough, AlphaFold2 has been used by more than two million people from 190 countries. Among a myriad of scientific applications, researchers can now better understand antibiotic resistance and create images of enzymes that can decompose plastic.
Further information:
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2024/press-release/
https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2024/10/popular-chemistryprize2024-4.pdf
Building new kinds of proteins
One half of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to David Baker for computational protein design. He has learned how to master life’s building blocks and create entirely new proteins.
Proteins generally consist of 20 different amino acids, which can be described as life’s building blocks. In 2003, David Baker succeeded in using these blocks to design a new protein that was unlike any other protein. Since then, his research group has produced one imaginative protein creation after another, including proteins that can be used as pharmaceuticals, vaccines, nanomaterials and tiny sensors.
Further information:
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2024/press-release/
https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2024/10/advanced-chemistryprize2024.pdf
Carbohydrate polymers could be a sweet solution for water purification
Researchers have found an advanced method for removing heavy metals from water that could be a future solution for water purification.
Water polluted with heavy metals can pose a threat when consumed by humans and aquatic life. Sugar-derived polymers from plants remove these metals but often require other substances to adjust their stability or solubility in water. Now, researchers in ACS Central Science report a sugar-like polymer that traps heavy metals within insoluble clumps for easy removal. In proof-of-concept tests, the polymer removed ionic cadmium and lead from river water spiked with these persistent contaminants.
Further information:
Ig Nobel Prize for using chromatography to separate drunk and sober worms
The Ig Nobel awards are for achievements, that first make people laugh and then make them think. This year, Tess Heeremans, Antoine Deblais, Daniel Bonn, and Sander Woutersen, won the Chemistry Prize.
The official title of the research was of course not about separating drunk and sober worms. The publication title was: Chromatographic separation of active polymer–like worm mixtures by contour length and activity. The convective transport rate of polymers through confined geometries depends on their size, allowing for size-based separation of polymer mixtures (chromatography). Here, it was investigated whether mixtures of active polymers can be separated in a similar manner based on their activity. Thin, living Tubifex tubifex worms have been used as a model system for active polymers and study the transport of these worms by an imposed flow through a channel filled with a hexagonal pillar array. The transport rate through the channel depends strongly on the degree of activity, an effect that was assigned to the different distribution of conformations sampled by the worms depending on their activity. Hint regarding the title: The activity level of the worms could be decreased by exposing the worm to alcohol.
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Lighting up Alzheimer’s-related proteins to allow for earlier disease detection
Researchers have found a way, to detect disease-related biomarkers such as aggregated proteins called amyloids. This could help monitor disease progression or distinguish between different amyloid-related conditions.
Many neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, are difficult to diagnose before symptoms begin to appear. However, disease-related biomarkers such as aggregated proteins called amyloids could provide important insight much earlier, if they can be readily detected. Researchers have developed such a method, using an array of sensor molecules that can light up amyloids. The tool could help monitor disease progression or distinguish between different amyloid-related conditions.
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New paths to an established reaction for chemists: the Azide-Wittig Reaction
More than 100 years after Staudinger's seminal reports on the reaction of iminophosphoranes with aldehydes, an alternative path, the so-called “Azide-Wittig Reaction” has been uncovered.
The original plan was to develop a new ligand, the shell of a catalyst. Specifically, the research groups of Dr. habil. Christian Hering-Junghans and Prof. Torsten Beweries at the Rostock LIKAT were to develop a phosphorus-based ligand. However, the syntheses as part of a doctorate led to a different substance than expected, namely a triazabutadiene. In the end, the synthesis path proved to be a new form of an established chemical process: the Wittig reaction, which was honored with a Nobel Prize in 1979. The new synthesis is called the "Azide-Wittig reaction" caused quite a stir among experts.
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