News & Comment

Climate change is a chemical problem and chemistry and chemical engineering can provide some of the solutions. What kind of chemistry should we be doing?

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a dramatic impact on the way we do research. Here, I share an approach to rebuild research capacity in a new collaborative fashion termed ‘teamlets’. Teamlets enable a team-based approach to boost morale, increase data integrity, faciliate interdisciplinarity and ensure continuity of expertise.

Cementitious materials — not least their reinforcements — are prone to aerobic oxidation, followed by chloride and sulfate attack. These processes jeopardize structures, particularly those exposed to air and seawater.

The Fenton and Fenton-like reactions feature in oxidative stress and are central to advanced oxidation technologies to remediate organic pollutants. The reactions are often simplistically taught to afford only hydroxyl radical as the active oxidant. Yet, this is just one of many possible oxidants and is probably not the major oxidant formed under biological conditions.

An experiment that challenged established dogma opened an entirely new avenue for research in the assembly and control of mechanically interlocked compounds.

As scientists of all stripes grow as leaders, it becomes their responsibility to shed light on the opportunities that may be hidden within an apparent failure. Presented as a letter to his younger self, Marc Reid looks back at the time when he could scarcely handle professional rejection and examines the lessons he learned.

One of the sustainable development goals set by the United Nations General Assembly is to ensure the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all. This requires investment in water purification technologies. World Water Day offers an opportunity to discuss whether such investment will help achieve this laudable goal.