Discovered the impossible material

Upsalit is a new chemical substance whose physical properties are still unique.

A material that is actually not likely to give researchers discovered at the Ångström Laboratory of Uppsala University. It is a completely new type of magnesium carbonate MgCO3 with the code whose production chemist previously thought impossible. For 100 years all attempts had failed in this direction. The scientists christened their substance “Upsalit”. It is extremely porous: Its surface is 800 square meters per gram Thanks to tiny pores of less than ten nanometers in diameter can accommodate Upsalit unusually large amounts of liquid.

Therefore, it could be used primarily as a drying agent. According to the researchers, it absorbs even at low humidity more water than all previously used substances such as Zeolite. In order to remove the water from the pores again and reuse the material can, enough warm air.

Upsalit is suitable to keep rooms in the electronics industry dry. In addition, it can absorb oil and chemicals to prevent accidents and even smells.

The nano-pores of the totally non-toxic substance could be soaked with drug compounds that would only slowly released into the body over long periods of time again. Amazing is not only the material itself – but also its history of discovery. Because it can be produced in a relatively simple low-temperature process. But it was the forgetfulness of the chemist to the group leader Johan Gómez de la Torre led the researchers to the track.

Actually, the scientists were looking for new Kalziumkarbonatverbindungen to tailor them as nanoparticles for sunscreens and medicines. One of their ideas was to replace the calcium by magnesium chemically similar because they hoped thereby chemically stable particles. To test their idea, they mixed a corresponding experiment together. But that was forgotten as they vanished into the weekend.

“When we came back on Monday and looked into the reaction vessel, we saw a tough, yellow-white gel instead of a liquid with the precipitated powder grains,” says! Gómez de la Torre. “There had to be an unknown reaction happens.”

The researchers dry the gel in the oven to examine it closer. But the drying took longer than expected. The solution: The tiny pores in the material held back the liquid

Another coincidence helped to elucidate the reaction mechanism.. Just because one of the scientists spoke Russian, they discovered some important chemical information in an old Russian doctoral thesis.

After hundreds of requests from all over the world arrived to Upsalit samples, the researchers commercialize their discovery now in their own company ” Disruptive material “, a spin-off of the University of Uppsala. <- AUTHOR MARKER DATA BEGIN -> ( Hanns-J Neubert .) / <- RSPEAK_STOP -> (bsc)
<- RSPEAK_START -> <- AUTHOR DATA MARKER END ->