Indian researchers remedy a long-standing puzzle – in chemistry | India Information
3 min learnNew DelhiUp to date: Could 24, 2026 06:37 PM IST
Researchers at IIT Madras and Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, have achieved a serious chemistry breakthrough by synthesizing a brand new carbon-free molecule that copies the bizarre ‘sandwich’ construction of the well-known carbon-containing ferrocene molecule, fixing an issue that had challenged scientists for over seven a long time.
Ferrocene, found within the early Fifties, is a broadly used compound in quite a lot of trendy applied sciences, whose distinctive construction — an iron atom ‘sandwiched’ between two giant and flat carbon ringed-molecules — has attracted quite a lot of scientific curiosity. It’s utilized in medicines, batteries, superior supplies and electronics. For many years, scientists have tried to create equally structured-molecules with components aside from carbon, however couldn’t succeed.
Carbon has a particular place in chemistry. There’s a complete department of chemistry, known as natural chemistry, devoted to check of carbon and its compounds. Carbon very effectively combines itself and different components to type very secure giant and sophisticated molecules. Scientists have been desirous about discovering whether or not the particular construction of ferrocene was solely due to the involvement of carbon rings, or might different components additionally type related sandwiched constructions between themselves.
Scientists world wide had tried completely different combos however a very carbon-free molecule with an identical construction and stability couldn’t be synthesized.
Now, a bunch of researchers at IIT Madras led by Sundargopal Ghosh and Stutee Mohapatra, in collaboration with Eluvathingal Jemmis of Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluruhas managed to do precisely that. They’ve designed a brand new molecule which has osmium on the centre as an alternative of iron, sandwiched between two boron-based rings, as an alternative of carbon rings. The construction is similar to that of ferrocene however is fully carbon-free.
The invention has been reported in Science journal, one of many world’s most prestigious scientific publications.
Proper now, the invention is being seen primarily as an instructional breakthrough. Its potential functions are nonetheless being investigated.
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“It’s a basic breakthrough of nice curiosity. It solutions a query that scientists had been desirous about for very lengthy. It does open new potentialities for designing novel supplies that may have particular properties. These potentialities are nonetheless being explored,” Ghosh instructed The Indian Specific.
Preliminary investigations have revealed that the brand new molecule is structurally secure, and the bonding between osmium and boron rings may be very sturdy, which might make it doubtlessly extra strong than ferrocene.
