26th Edition of International Research Chemistry Awards
Scientists just uncovered the first new chemical bond in over 10 years
A group of researchers at the University of Tokyo have spent years testing the limits of chemical bonds . And now, after years of work, they’ve finally explored an idea originally proposed in 1931: a chemical bond formed using just a single electron. This, of course, poses quite a conundrum, as many believe single-electron chemical bonds can’t exist. That’s because all of the current known covalent bonds—where atoms connect by sharing their electrons—must contain two, four, six, or eight electrons . However, in 1931, Linus Pauling theorized that a covalent bond could exist with atoms sharing a single electron. However, creating a new single-electron chemical bond isn’t easy. To find out if it is possible, researchers started with a covalent bond that already exists with two electrons. They then removed one of those electrons by using a chemical reaction. They used a large hydrocarbon with long bonds between its carbon atoms to help ensure the energy cost would be too great for a...
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