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Article: The importance of bonding. (new molecules) (Science and Technology)
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- June 2, 1990
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1990 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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CHEMISTS are making molecules that their textbooks tell them should not exist. Dr Hubert Schmidbaur and his team at Munich's Technical University have made carbon and nitrogen atoms bond to five or six atoms of gold; this is odd because they are usually thought to bond only with up to four other atoms at a time. As yet the new molecules are mere curiosities. But, perhaps as the basis for a new generation of catalysts, they could one day make some rather boring substances do useful chemistry.
The successes of modern chemistry, such as pharmaceuticals and polymers like nylon, rest largely on ideas of chemical bonding that were handed down from the nineteenth ...