Science Meets Art:C&EN's Chemistry in Pictures

Crème brûlée blooms

The contents of this Erlenmeyer flask, forgotten in the back of a fume hood for a month, crystallized into a floral pattern. The crystallized molecule, 2-allylisoindoline-1,3dione, came from the ethyl acetate portion of an aqueous extraction that was part of a three-step synthesis. Paul Furuta, director of material development at Capacitor Sciences, performed the experiment and says the flask may contain a significant amount of the solvent dimethylformamide. "This might have contributed to the slow crystallization and interesting pattern." The final product of the synthesis is an advanced dielectric—an electrical insulator—for use in energy-storage capacitors.

盛开的焦糖布丁花

被遗忘在通风橱深处一个月后 , 这个爱伦美氏烧瓶里的物质 形成了花卉图案的结晶。结晶的分子是 2- 烯丙基异吲哚 -1,3二酮 , 来自于水萃取的乙酸乙酯部分 , 这一水萃取是三步合成 反应中的一步。电容器科学公司（Capacitor Sciences）材料 开发部总监 Paul Furuta 进行了该实验 。 他说 , 烧瓶中可能 含有大量的溶剂二甲基甲酰胺。“这或许导致了缓慢结晶并 形成了有趣图案。” 合成反应的最终产物是一种高性能介电 质，即电绝缘体，用于储能电容器。 Submitted by / 图片来源：Paul Furuta

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An explosive contaminant

Daniel McAteer's team at Cranfield University found a simple way to detect the explosive, and sometime wastewater contaminant, 3-nitro-1,2,4-triazol-5-one (NTO). They came across the idea when they added base to an aqueous solution of the chemical and got a vivid orange color. That simple insight, combined with "lots of hard work," McAteer says, resulted in a color test that takes only a few seconds to do, is sensitive to ppm levels of the explosive, and requires only a base and eyes. This photo shows decreasing concentrations of NTO: 10,000 ppm on the left to 0 ppm on the right. Read the full paper: Propellants, Explos., Pyrotech. 2018, DOI: 10.1002/prep.201800239.

易爆炸的污染物

克兰菲尔德大学的 Daniel McAteer 团队发现了一种检测 3硝基 -1, 2, 4- 三唑 -5-1 (NTO) 的简易方法。NTO 是一种炸 药，有时也是废水污染物。其灵感源于一次实验：当他们 向 NTO 的水溶液中加入碱，出现了鲜艳的橙色。McAteer 说，这一简单的观察再加上“大量艰苦的工作”，才有了 现在仅需几秒钟、只要碱和眼睛就能完成的颜色测试。 该测试也很敏感，可测出低至百万分比浓度（PPM）的 NTO。这张照片显示了逐渐降低的 NTO 浓度：从最左侧 的 10,000 ppm 到最右侧的 0 ppm。 Submitted by / 图片来源：Daniel McAteer

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pH is pretty "Today my chemistry professor had us test out the effectiveness of different pH buffers in a 96 well tray, and the results were stunning," college student and reddit user PollitaLoquita says. Each row contains a different indicator, listed below, and each column contains a buffer at a certain pH, ranging from acidic on the left to basic on the right. Students learned about the effective range of each indicator and practiced using the indicators' color charts to determine pH. A Thymol blue B Thymolphthalein C Congo red D Cabbage E Bromothymol blue F Phenolphthalein G Indigo carmine H Universal indicator, a mix of a few different indicators including some of the above

美丽的 pH “今天我的化学教授带我们在 96 孔托盘中测试了不同 pH 缓冲溶液的有效 程度，实验结果简直太赞了，” 一名叫做 PollitaLoquita 的大学生 reddit 用户说。如下所示，每行是不同的酸碱指示剂，每列则是特定 pH 值下的缓 冲溶液，从左侧的酸性到右侧的碱性。学生们不仅学到了每个指示剂的有效 范围，还练习了使用指示剂的色表来确定 pH 值。 A 百里酚蓝 B 百里酚酞 C 刚果红 D 卷心菜 E 溴百里酚蓝 F 酚酞 G 靛蓝胭脂红 H 通用指示剂，包括上述一些指示剂在内的不同试剂的组合

Submitted by / 图片来源：Pollita Loquita

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Black sunburst

Andrzej Danel of the University of Agriculture in Krakow produced these spiky structures by placing a strong magnet under a 5 cm wide puddle of a ferrofluid. This ink black fluid consists of nanosized particles of iron and iron oxides floating inside a carrier solvent with a significant portion of a surfactant, like an oil. Molecules of the surfactant surround the iron-containing particles and keep the particles from clumping up into a solid mound as they get magnetized.

The particles can move around in the solvent in response to the magnetic field, resulting in the 3-D structures like these spikes. Danel and his colleagues use this ferrofluid demo and others to spark children's interest in science.

黑色光芒

克拉科夫农业大学的 Andrzej Danel 在一滩 5 厘米大小的铁液 下方放置了一块强磁铁，创造了这些尖刺结构。铁液是一种墨 黑色的液体，含有漂浮在富含表面活性剂（比如油）的载体溶 剂里的铁和铁氧化物纳米颗粒。表面活性剂的分子包围了含铁 的颗粒，防止这些颗粒在磁化时聚集成固态堆。颗粒在磁场的 作用下在溶剂中移动，形成这些尖峰状三维结构。Danel 和同 事们利用这个铁液流体演示和其他方法来激发少儿对科学的 兴趣。 Submitted by / 图片来源：Andrzej Danel

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All hail halides These flasks all contain CsPbBr 3 nanocr ystals excited with an ultraviolet lamp. The size of the crystals dictates what color they glow when excited. The second flask from the left contains small particles, while the third from the left contains large particles, making it a bright green. The flasks on the ends both contain the same material as the bright green flask, but they've been mixed with lithium chloride (left) and lithium iodide (right) to turn the contents blue and orange, respectively. Florida State University chemistry professor Lea Nienhaus and her group tuned the emission colors of the perovskite nanocrystals through a process called halide exchange. "Halide ions are highly mobile in perovskites, so we can replace them by simply adding an excess of a new halide into the flask, and the color will rapidly change,"Nienhaus explains. She set pipettes containing the CsPbBr3 starting material into the flasks after adding the halides. The ions slowly diffused up the pipette capillary, creating the deep blue to light blue and orange to green transitions shown. Nienhaus's group aims to better understand the fundamental properties of perovskites for applications in solar energy harvesting, lighting, and energy conversion.

卤素万岁 这些烧瓶都装有用紫外线灯激发的 CsPbBr3 纳米晶体。晶体的大小决定 了它们在被激发时发光的颜色。左数第二个烧瓶含有小颗粒 , 而左数第三 个烧瓶含有大颗粒 , 使其成为亮绿色。两端的烧瓶都含有与亮绿色烧瓶相 同的材料 , 但它们分别与氯化锂 ( 左 ) 和碘化锂 ( 右 ) 混合 , 使得内容物分 别变成蓝色和橙色。佛罗里达州立大学化学教授 Lea Nienhaus 和团队通 过一种叫做卤素置换的过程 , 调整了这些钙钛矿纳米晶体的发光颜色。 “在 钙钛矿化合物中 , 卤素离子具有很高的流动性 , 因此我们可以通过简单地 在烧瓶中添加过量的新卤化物来取代它们，迅速改变颜色，” Nienhaus 解释说。她在烧瓶中加入卤化物后 , 将含有起始材料 CsPbBr3 的移液器 放入瓶中。在毛细扩散作用下，离子慢慢沿着移液器向上，形成如图所 示的深蓝色到浅蓝色、橙色到绿色的过渡。Nienhaus 的团队旨在更好地 了解钙钛矿化合物的基本特性，以应用于太阳能收集、照明和能量转换 方面。

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Twinning

This micrograph shows plagioclase, a type of feldspar, with a field of view of 2.7 mm. The sample hails from Brazil, and Bernardo Cesare, a geoscientist at the University of Padua, obtained it from a company that sells marble and granite for countertops. The plagioclase shown here is twinned, which refers to crystals that share lattice points but have different orientations. The blue areas all have the same orientation, and the yellow areas have a different orientation. Twinned plagioclase is found in igneous and metamorphic rocks all over the world. "In geology the composition of plagioclase is extensively used to determine the pressure and temperature of rock formation," Cesare explains.

Plagioclase is also commonly used as a raw material in the ceramics industry.

双晶

这张显微镜照片显示的是斜长石，长石的一种，视野为 2.7 毫米。该样本来自巴西。帕多瓦大学的地质学家 Bernardo Cesare 从一家大理石和花岗岩台面的销售公司获得。这里 显示的斜长石是双晶，即晶格点相同但方向不同的晶体。 蓝色区域具有同一方向，黄色区域则具有另一个方向。 在世界各地的火成岩和变质岩石中都发现了双斜长石。 Cesare 解释说：“在地质学中 , 斜长石的成分被广泛用于 确定岩层的压力和温度。”斜长石也常用作陶瓷工业原料。 Submitted by / 图片来源：Bernardo Cesare, www.microckscopica.org

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Birthday confetti

Under a polarizing optical microscope, the orientation of each of these crystals determines which color it refracts. Lana Hiscock, a PhD student at Wilfrid Laurier University, shared this image on Twitter, adding, "Some days chemistry feels more art than science - in this case abstract art."Hiscock synthesized two isomers of a compound whose molecules have a helical, or spiral, shape. She then crystallized one of those isomers. Lana's lab studies how molecules interact, and the goal of her research is to better understand how helical molecules pack in a crystal lattice.

生日派对纸屑

在偏振光显微镜下，每个晶体的方向决定了其折射的颜色。 威尔弗里德·劳雷尔大学的博士生 Lana Hiscock 在推特上 分享了这张照片，并补充道：“有时化学感觉更像艺术而 不是科学 — 在这个例子中是抽象艺术”。Hiscock 合成了 一种具有螺旋状分子的化合物的两个异构体，并将其中一 个异构体结晶。Lana Hiscock 的实验室研究分子如何互相 作用，她的研究目标是更好地了解螺旋状分子如何在晶格 中堆积。 Submitted by / 图片来源：Lana K. Hiscock

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Crystal contest 2018

In 2018, more than 250 teams participated in the fifth annual US Crystal Growing Competition. Participants included thousands of K–12 students and teachers, and home-school families from 42 states and Washington, DC. Organizer Jason Benedict (shown holding an alum crystal he grew), an associate professor of chemistry at the University at Buffalo, and his volunteers sent out crystal-growing kits containing alum and suggested procedures to participants.

The contestants started growing their crystals on Oct. 22, coinciding with National Chemistry Week, and continued for five weeks. Judging such a massive contest took awhile, Benedict says, but they announced the winners in midJanuary. "This contest directly exposes kids to the world of crystals and crystal growth, which are vitally important to modern science in terms of health care, materials and food," Benedict says.

2018 晶体竞赛

2018 年，250 多支队伍参加了第五届美国晶体培育大赛。参赛 者包括来自 42 个州和华盛顿特区的数千名中学生和教师，以及 家庭学校的家庭。赛事组织者 Jason Benedict（图中他拿着一 块自己培育的明矾晶体）是布法罗大学的一名化学副教授，他 和志愿者们一起向参赛者分发含有明矾和建议流程的晶体生长 工作包。10 月 22 日，选手们开始了为期五周的晶体培育过程， 这个开赛日期恰逢全国化学周。Benedict 说，对如此大规模的 比赛进行评判评需要一段时间，他们在一月中旬宣布了获胜者。 “这项比赛直接让孩子们了解晶体和晶体生长的世界，这对于 健康医疗、材料和食品等现代科学至关重要，”Benedict 说。 Submitted by / 图片来源：Douglas Levere/University at Buffalo

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Industrial art

This white powder is 5-aminosalicylic acid, also known as mesalazine, an anti-inflammatory drug used to treat inflammatory bowel disease. Lorenzo de Ferra, scientific director of Chemi SpA, a manufacturer of pharmaceutical ingredients, observed that the crystals settled in the reactor being used to make the drug molecule "in elegant shapes reminiscent of those of a white flower." The similarity is heightened "by the stirrer that is seen in the center and resembles its stem." De Ferra's colleague took this photo after discharging the powder from a slurry of the drug molecule and its crystallization solvent. The combined effects of gravity and the reactor's movements created the pattern you see here.

工业艺术

这种白色粉末是 5- 氨基水杨酸，也被称为美沙拉嗪，一种用于 治疗炎症性肠病的消炎药。药物原料制造商 Chemi SpA 的科学 主管 Lorenzo de Ferra 观察到，这些晶体沉淀在被用来制造药 物分子的反应器中，“形状优雅，形如白花”。再加上“中间 类似花茎的搅拌器”，就更为相似。De Ferra 的同事将粉末从 药物分子及其结晶溶剂的浆液中取出后，拍摄了这张照片。重 力和反应堆运动的共同作用创造了你在这里看到的图案。

Submitted by / 图片来源：Lorenzo de Ferra

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C’est magnifique!

This tangle of crystals is made up of minty menthol. Vance Williams, a professor of organic materials at Simon Fraser University, took this photograph at 20x magnification using polarized optical microscopy. "The form of the crystals arises from their tendency to grow as thin needles," Williams explains. "With rapid cooling, this can become quite chaotic."

The needlike structures come from the crystals’ propensity to grow rapidly in one direction, while the variations in color arise from the crystals'orientation and thickness, as well as differences in their refractive index. Williams's research focuses on analyzing liquid crystalline materials; he photographed these crystals as part of an outreach effort to show people every-day chemicals close up.

无与伦比

这团晶体由带薄荷香的薄荷醇构成。西蒙弗雷泽大学的有机 材料学教授 Vance Williams 在 20 倍数的偏振光学显微镜下拍 摄了这张照片。“这些晶体的形态源于它们长成细针型的倾 向，”Williams 解释说。“迅速冷却时这个过程可以变得相当 混乱。”这些晶体朝同一个方向迅速生长的特性给予了它们针 状的结构，而颜色的变化则来源于晶体不同的定向、厚度和折 光率。Williams 的研究主要集中于分析液晶材料，他拍摄的这 些晶体是为了一个教育拓展项目，向人们展示日常化学物质的 特写。 Submitted by / 图片来源：Vance Williams

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Crystal clear

The chemist who made these crystals thinks they could hold clues to how life evolved on Earth. Cesar Menor Salvan, a research scientist at the Center for Chemical Evolution at Georgia Institute of Technology, photographed the crystals through a microscope with a field of view of 1 cm. To make them, Menor Salvan formed synthetic struvite (magnesium ammonium phosphate) in a solution of urea and magnesium with the addition of a small amount of phosphoric acid. After the struvite crystallized, the pH of the solution dropped, allowing a second generation of small newberyite crystals to form. This process, Menor Salvan explains, could be relevant for understanding how the first nucleotides developed. Nucleotides are the building blocks of DNA. For a long time, Menor Salvan says, chemists thought struvite only formed through biological processes. "We demonstrated that these magnesium phosphates could be formed abiotically and that these minerals could have been part of the inventory of prebiotic chemistry," he says.

揭秘生命之谜的晶体

制造这些晶体的化学家认为，它们可能包含着生命如何在地球上 进化的线索。乔治亚理工学院化学进化中心的研究科学家 Cesar Menor Salvan 用显微镜拍摄了这些晶体，视野为 1 厘米。为了制 造晶体，Menor Salvan 首先在含有尿素和镁的溶液中加入少量磷 酸形成鸟粪石（磷酸铵镁）。鸟粪石结晶后，溶液 pH 下降，形 成第二代小型镁磷石晶体。Menor Salvan 解释说，这个过程可能 与了解第一个核苷酸如何形成有关。核苷酸是 DNA 的组成部分。 Menor Salvan 说，很长时间以来，化学家们认为鸟粪石只能通过 生物过程生成。他说：“我们展示了这些磷酸镁可以通过非生物 方式形成，而这些矿物质可能是生物起源前化学世界的一部分。” Submitted by / 图片来源：Cesar Menor Salvan 查看更多信息请扫描 Scan QR code to get more information

True colors

After a long day of analyzing various glowing solutions, Barbora Balonova took this colorful photo of conjugated compounds under long-wave ultraviolet light. Balonova is a PhD candidate at the University of New Brunswick, and the samples belong to UNB master's candidate Jayden Price. Price is studying the photophysical properties of a series of diarylmaleimide building blocks. These compounds may have applications in organic electronics.

真实的颜色

在漫长的一天的发光溶液分析后，Barbora Balonova 在长波紫外 线下拍出了这张共轭化合物的彩色照片。Balonova 是新不伦瑞克 大学的在读博士生，样本属于同校的在读研究生 Jayden Price。 Price 正在研究一系列二芳基马来酰亚胺结构单元的光物理性质。 这些化合物可能能应用在有机电子学领域。 Submitted by / 图片来源：Barbora Balonova

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Stars of the scorpionate

On his way to making a coordination complex, Steven Welsh synthesized this intermediate, which created star-shaped crystals on his round-bottom flask. Welsh studies the bonding in these metal complexes called metallaboratranes as part of his PhD work in Anthony Hill's group at the Australian National University. This class of metal complex involves a so-called scorpionate ligand—a molecule that binds to a metal atom in three places in a way that resembles a scorpion holding the metal with its two pincers and tail (scorpionate ligand is yellow in example structure shown). In a metallaboratrane, the scorpionate ligand also features a boron atom that creates a bond between the boron and the metal (arrow in structure). This bonding imparts unusual properties to these complexes.

蝎型配合物之星

在制造配位化合物的过程中，Steven Welsh 合成了在圆底烧瓶上 生出星状晶体的中间体。Welsh 是澳大利亚国立大学 Anthony Hill 实验室的一名博士生，他的工作包括研究叫做 metallaboratranes 的金属络合物的成键。这类金属络合物涉及到一种所谓的蝎合物 配体，它在三个位置与同一个金属原子成键，形状就好像一只蝎 子用它的两钳和尾巴同时抓住金属（在所示结构范例中，蝎合物 配体呈黄色）。在 metallaboratranes 中，蝎合物配体还具有一个 硼原子，与金属成键（结构里的箭头）。这个键赋予这些络合物 不寻常的特性。 Submitted by / 图片来源：Steven Welsh

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Not-so-simple syrup

Although tasty, maple syrup seems chemically uninteresting.

But, as part of his outreach theme of "#everydayfluorescence," Brian Wagner posted this image of maple syrup glowing bright blue under an ultraviolet light. Wagner, a professor at the University of Prince Edward Island, found out about the sugary condiment's glowing potential about two months ago when he read about it in a paper; he promptly went out to a grocery store to grab a bottle of President's Choice maple syrup and has since tested other brands to confirm the result. According to Wagner, the fluorescence stems from the complex composition of the syrup, which includes various biological molecules from maple trees containing the amino acid tr yptophan and phenolicmoieties. Several of these aromatic molecules fluoresce.

不一般的糖浆

枫糖浆虽然好吃，但在化学方面似乎没有什么出色之处。然而， 作为他发起的“# 每日荧光”科普主题的一部分，Brian Wagner 在网上分享了这张枫糖浆在紫外线下闪耀蓝光的照片。约两个月 前，爱德华王子岛大学的教授 Wagner 在一篇论文中读到了这种 含糖调味品的发光潜力。他立刻去杂货店买了一瓶“总统的选择” 牌糖浆，并测试了其他品牌以确认结果。据 Wagner 说，荧光源 于糖浆的复杂组成，包括枫树中含有氨基酸色氨酸和酚类化合物 的各种生物分子。这些芳香分子中的几个都发荧光。 Submitted by / 图片来源：Brian Wagner

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Crystal fan art

Andrzej Danel at the Agricultural University of Kraków grew this large copper(II) sulfate crystal over the course of a few weeks.

Danel was inspired by Roger Hiorns's 2008 art installation "Seizure," for which the artist pumped 75,000 liters of a copper(II) sulfate solution into an empty London apartment, allowing the compound to crystallize and coat the walls and ceiling in shimmering blue crystals. Danel says he didn't have a big enough beaker for 75,000 liters; instead he used a 750 mL beaker to create this crystal, which he has dubbed "My Precious."

晶体迷的粉丝艺术

克拉科夫农业大学的 Andrzej Danel 花了几周时间培育了这块巨 大的硫酸铜 (II) 晶体。Danel 的灵感来自 Roger Hiorns 2008 年的 大型艺术作品“Seizure”。为了创作这件作品，这位艺术家将 75000 升硫酸铜 (II) 溶液注入伦敦的一间空公寓，从而使该化合物 结晶并在公寓的墙壁和天花板上都覆上了一层闪闪发光的蓝色晶 体。Danel 说他没有足够大的烧杯来盛放 75000 升溶液；作为替代， 他用了一个 750 毫升的烧杯来制作这块晶体，他称之为“我的宝 贝（My Precious）”。 Submitted by / 图片来源：Andrzej Danel

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Shining better together

Before Yujie Tu crystallized this anthracene derivative, it hardly glowed at all. In the closely packed structure of the crystals, the molecules clumped together, locking down squirmy parts of the molecules that would otherwise absorb light and thus prevent fluorescence. Tu studies this phenomenon, called aggregate-induced emission, as part of his PhD work at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Finding organic molecules that glow when they clump together is useful in biological imaging because organic fluorescent molecules are often hydrophobic and tend to form aggregates in the watery environments inside cells.

聚一起更加亮

在 Yujie Tu 将这种蒽衍生物结晶之前，它几乎不发光。在这些结 晶体紧密排列的结构中，分子聚集在一起，锁定每个分子里扭曲的、 会吸收光线的部分，从而阻止荧光产生。Tu 在研究这种被称为聚 集诱导发光（aggregate-induced emission）的现象，作为她攻读 香港科技大学博士学位的一部分工作。发现聚集时发光的有机分 子在生物成像中是有用的，因为有机荧光分子通常疏水，在细胞 内的含水环境中它们倾向于形成聚集体。 Submitted by / 图片来源：Yujie Tu

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As above, so below

Juan Antonio Rivas Loaiza, a Ph.D. candidate at Michoacan University of Saint Nicholas of Hidalgo, purified the bifunctional thiourea organocatalyst seen here. He illuminated the vial from below to observe the crystals diffracting light after evaluating the organocatalyst's activity. Loaiza's group designs and synthesizes organocatalysts in hopes of finding new synthetic routes that are more efficient or environmentally friendly. "Any chemical project goes beyond understanding a function or a reaction," Loaiza says. "Chemistry is a true art."

以下如上

Juan Antonio Rivas Loaiza 是伊达尔戈圣尼古拉斯的米却肯大学 的博士生，他纯化了如图所示的双功能硫脲有机催化剂。在评估 了有机催化剂的活性后，他从下方照亮小瓶，观察衍射光的晶体。 Loaiza 的团队设计并合成有机催化剂，希望能找到更有效或更环 保的新合成路线。Loaiza 说：“任何一个化学项目都不仅仅是对 功能或反应的理解。化学是一门真正的艺术。” Submitted by / 图片来源：Juan Antonio Rivas Loaiza

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An alchemist's garden

Will Carden, a graduate student in the McElwee-White lab at the University of Florida, designs gold (I) precursors for focused electron beam induced deposition (FEBID), a technique that uses an electron beam to blast apart gaseous molecules so that resulting nonvolatile fragments deposit on a substrate.

One afternoon, he sublimated t-butylisocyanide gold(I) chloride to produce a wealth of white needle-like crystals that predominately collected on a chilled piece of glassware called a cold-finger. But some of the crystals also grew out of the bottom of the flask. The green residue is likely a product of decomposition, Carden says, but it creates a garden-like setting for the crystalline tree in the center.

炼金术士的花园

Will Carden 是佛罗里达大学 McElwee-White 实验室里的一名研究 生，他设计用于聚焦电子束诱导沉积的金（I）前体，这种技术使 用电子束轰击气体分子，从而产生非挥发性碎片沉积在基底上。 一天下午，他升华了叔丁基异氰化物氯化金，以制作大量主要聚 集在玻璃器皿上的白色针状晶体，称为“冷指”。但一些晶体也 从烧瓶底部长了出来。Carden 说，绿色残留物很可能是分解的产 物，但它为中间的水晶树创造了花园般的环境。 Submitted by / 图片来源：Will Carden/McElwee-White Lab

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Lab in a box

Adrian Villalta-Cerdas created this resin art to allow students to safely handle small amounts of chemicals during his general chemistry lectures at Sam Houston State University. Here, copper acetate appears in its solid form on the left and in an aqueous solution on the right. To make the resin casts, VillaltaCerdas fills 1-mL flasks with the desired compounds and then fills the bottom of a silicon mold with some epoxy resin. Once it hardens, he adds the flasks, covers them with resin, and allows it to harden for 48 hours. He's also made casts of liquid mercury, nickel(II) chloride, and graphite, to name a few. If a student were to drop a cast, the glass containers inside might break, but the compounds would remain safely encased inside the resin. Villalta-Cerdas says the reaction from his students has been mostly positive, but adds, "With college students, it is hard sometimes to tell if they like something or not."

盒中实验室

Adrian Villalta-Cerdas 创造了这种树脂艺术，好让学生们可以在 他在山姆休斯顿州立大学的化学课上安全地处理少量的化学物质。 在这里，醋酸铜以固体形式出现在左边，以水溶液形式出现在右边。 为了制作树脂模型，Villalta-Cerdas 用所需的化合物填充 1 毫升的 烧瓶，然后用环氧树脂填充硅模具的底部。一旦它变硬，他就把 烧瓶加进去，涂上树脂，并使其硬化 48 小时。他还制作了液态水 银、氯化镍（II）和石墨等的铸模。如果一个学生把铸模掉到地上， 里面的玻璃容器可能会破裂，但是化合物会安全地包裹在树脂里。 Villalta-Cerdas 说，他的学生的反应大多是积极的，但补充道，“作 为大学生们，有时很难判断他们是否喜欢某样东西。” Submitted by / 图片来源：Adrian Villalta-Cerdas

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Psychedelic spirits

This polarized-light micrograph shows a drop of the alcoholic drink Aperol on a glass slide. Bernardo Cesare, a geoscientist at the University of Padua, captured the image after being inspired by the photographs of the late Florida State University researcher Michael W. Davidson, who crystalized alcoholic beverages and photographed them under polarized light. Cesare chose Aperol, a bitter, herbaceous aperitif that originated in the Padua region and is a popular ingredient in a wine-based cocktail known as the spritz. Cesare left the solution to evaporate for almost a month before it reached the right degree of supersaturation; at that point the sucrose in the drink began to nucleate, forming the radiating aggregate of crystals you see here. Cesare notes that in geology, such aggregates are often the basis of threedimensional textures known as spherulites.

迷幻的烈酒

这张偏光显微镜照片显示了一滴滴在玻璃载玻片上的阿佩罗酒。 帕多瓦大学的地质学家 Bernardo Cesare 在受到佛罗里达州立大 学已故研究员 Michael W. Davidson 的照片启发后拍摄了这张照 片，Davidson 曾将酒精饮料结晶并在偏光下拍摄。Cesare 选择了 阿佩罗酒，一种起源于帕多瓦地区的苦味草本开胃酒。阿佩罗酒 也是以葡萄酒为基础的 Spritz 鸡尾酒中很受欢迎的成分。Cesare 将溶液放置了几乎一个月，任其蒸发，直到达到适当的过饱和程度。 在那时，酒中的蔗糖开始成核，形成了你在这里看到的辐射开去 的晶体聚集体。Cesare 指出，在地质学中，这样的聚集体通常是 一种称为球晶的三维纹理的基础。 Submitted by / 图片来源：Bernardo Cesare

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Synthetic springtail

Next to nothing sticks to the springtail (bottom left), a harmless jumping hexpod (not technically an insect) about the size of the numbers on the face of a penny. Scientists studying the critters discovered that this "omniophobicity" results from two levels of microscopic features on their surface (bottom center and right).

The outer surface is covered with 2-µm bumps, which are in turn covered by 200-nm features that resemble a peg with a fourlegged cap. This nanosized texture traps air, preventing liquids from fully reaching the surface. As a result, the liquids don’t stick. To replicate the effect on a synthetic surface, Hee-Tae Jung, Geun-Tae Yun and coworkers at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology used a variety of lithographic techniques to cover a polystyrene surface with "serif-T" shaped islands, then wrinkled the surface by heat-shrinking the polystyrene. The resulting material (top) repelled water, ethanol, and ethylene glycol even when the liquids hit the surface at high velocity.

合成弹尾虫

几乎没有任何东西可以粘在弹尾虫身上（左下）。它是一种无害 的跳跃六足虫（严格来说不是昆虫），大约有一美分硬币上的数 字那么大。研究这种生物的科学家们发现，它们的“全能斥水性” 来源于身体表面的两层微观特征（中下和右下）。外层表面覆盖 有 2 微米高的突起物，这些突起又被 200 纳米大小的四角帽挂钩 一样的东西覆盖。这种纳米级纹理可以捕获空气，防止液体与表 面完全接触。这样，液体就不会黏住。为了在合成表面上复制这 一 效 果，Hee-Tae Jung、Geun-Tae Yun 和 他 们 在 韩 国 高 级 科 学 技术研究院的同事们使用了多种光刻技术，在聚苯乙烯表面覆盖 “serif-T”形状的岛屿，然后通过加热收缩聚苯乙烯使该表面起皱。 即使液体以高速冲击表面，所得材料（上部）也能排斥水、乙醇 和乙二醇。 Submitted by / 图 片 来 源：Science Advances/B. Valentine/Sci. Adv. 2018, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aat4978 查看更多信息请扫描 Scan QR code to get more information

Enchanted rose

Christopher Gordon Thomson grew this crystal flower from an organic dye. He works in a lab at Heriot-Watt University that makes photoactive materials for photocatalysis. Thomson says that differences in the crystal-packing structure between the flower and the base of the vial are responsible for the different colors. This terrarium scene becomes visible when he shines ultraviolet light on the vial.

魔法玫瑰

Christopher Gordon Thomson 用一种有机染料培育出这朵水晶 花。他在赫瑞瓦特大学一个制作光催化光活性材料的实验室工作。 Thomson 说，花和瓶底部之间的晶体堆积结构不同，导致了颜色 的差异。当他把紫外光照到瓶子上时，这个水晶球般的图景便肉 眼可见了。 Submitted by / 图 片 来 源：Christopher G. Thomson, Alec Burgess, and Dr Filipe Vilela VilelaLAB Heriot-Watt University www.vilelalab.co.uk

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Raise a glass to fluorescence

Chemists love their glassware, and the University of Prince Edward Island’s Brian Wagner is no exception. His favorite pint glass shows off structures of the most common compounds found in beer: ethanol, water, fructose, glucose, maltose, and flavor compounds from hops, such as cis-isohumulone (top left of the glass), humulene (center of glass), and myrcene. Wagner was pleasantly surprised when he noticed that the glass is also fluorescent under ultraviolet light. The glass glows blue because the manufacturers added metal oxides to the glass mix, which allow them to change a variety of the glass's material properties.

How did Wagner discover its blue glow? "I have a portable, battery-powered UV-A lamp, so yes, I do go around checking things out for fluorescence, in fact!" Wagner says.

举杯敬荧光

化 学 家 们 热 爱 他 们 的 玻 璃 器 皿， 爱 德 华 王 子 岛 大 学 的 Brian Wagner 也不例外。他最喜欢的品脱杯展示了在啤酒里最常见的化 合物的结构：乙醇、水、果糖、葡萄糖、麦芽糖，以及啤酒花里 的风味化合物，比如顺式异葎草酮（杯子左上角）、蛇麻烯（杯 子中心）和月桂烯。当 Wagner 发现杯子在紫外线照射下也会发 出荧光时，他感到非常惊喜。杯子发蓝光是因为制造商在玻璃混 合物中加入了金属氧化物，以改变玻璃的各种材料特性。Wagner 是如何发现它的蓝光的？“我有一个便携式的电池供电的 UV-A 灯， 所以，没错，我确实拿它到处检查东西会不会发荧光 !”Wagner 说。 Submitted by / 图片来源：Brian Wagner

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Call of Cthulhu

At his day job, Chemistry In Pictures reader Charles M works in a lab that makes ultrasound gels for materials science and failure analysis experiments. But he also applies his scientific skills around his house. He bought a supply of the fluorescent dye fluorescein and used it to detect a leak in his truck's coolant lines. Afterwards, he suspended the leftovers in silicone resin to make this custom figurine for a tabletop role-playing game.

"Call of Cthulhu is a role-playing game like Dungeons & Dragons, but with a horror theme based on the cosmic fiction of H.P. Lovecraft," Charles explains. "Science plays a huge part in the game, which takes place in the Prohibition era 1920s, where science and technology were growing so fast it genuinely scared people. I often use things like chemical history to improve the gameplay setting."

克苏鲁的呼唤

《照片里的化学》的读者 Charles M 在一家为材料科学和失效分 析实验制作超声波凝胶的实验室里工作。但他也在家里运用自己 的科学技能。他买了一批荧光染料荧光素，用来检测卡车冷却液 管道的泄漏。之后，他把剩余的荧光素悬浮于硅树脂里，做成了 这个角色扮演桌面游戏的定制小雕像。Charles 解释说：“克苏鲁 的呼唤是和龙与地下城一样的角色扮演类游戏，但其恐怖主题基 于 H.P. Lovecraft 的宇宙小说。科学在游戏中发挥了重要作用，因 为这个游戏发生在 20 世纪 20 年代的禁酒令时期，那时科学和技 术的发展飞快着实令人害怕。我常借助化学史这样的知识来改进 游戏设置。” Submitted by / 图片来源： Charles M

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'Dusty peacock'

Jess Wade, a physicist at Imperial College London, studies polymers and liquid cr ystals used in display and lightemitting diode technologies. This microscope image (at 10x magnification) shows a polymer and small chiral molecule blended in a film less than 100 nm thick. When Wade warmed the film up to a certain temperature called the polymer's glass transition temperature, the chains became more flexible and, where there were defects on the underlying surface, started to form peacock-like structures. The feathery structures "may look great through a cross-polarized microscope, but in reality, any aggregates aren't good for displays," she says. By studying these transitions in and out of the liquid crystal state, Wade and her group can understand how temperature and film composition affects device performance.

“蒙灰的孔雀”

伦敦帝国理工学院的物理学家 Jess Wade 研究用于显示器和发光 二极管技术的聚合物和液晶。该显微镜图像（10 倍放大 ) 显示了 混合在不足 100 纳米厚的膜中的聚合物和小手性分子。当 Wade 把薄膜加热到一定温度——聚合物的玻璃化转变温度，这些链变 得更加灵活，并在底层表面有缺陷的地方开始形成类似孔雀状的 结构。她说，这些羽毛状的结构“在交叉偏振显微镜下可能看起 来很棒，但实际上，任何聚集体都不适合显示器。”通过研究液 晶态的这些转换过程，Wade 和她的团队可以了解温度和薄膜组成 如何影响器件的性能。 Submitted by / 图片来源： Jess Wade and Li Wan, @jesswade, Department of Physics and Centre for Plastic Electronics, Imperial College London

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Graphene tattoo

The translucent squiggles on this woman's forehead aren't some new fashion statement: They're electrodes that could help her or her doctor monitor brain activity or other physiological signals depending on where the squiggles get applied. Nanshu Lu's and Deji Akinwande's groups at the University of Texas, Austin, made this graphene electronic tattoo (GET) by attaching tattoo paper to a supported monolayer of graphene—a one-atom-thick sheet of carbon. The team could then apply the graphene layer to the skin like a temporary tattoo. Because of the extreme thinness of graphene and the flexible curvy shapes they cut into the GET, the electrode can bend and deform with skin, allowing users to wear it as they go about their day and facilitating real-time sensing applications.

石墨烯纹身

这位女士额头上的半透明波纹并不是什么新的时尚宣言：它们是 电级，取决于与它们的使用位置，可帮助她或她的医生监测脑部 活动和其它生理信号。德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校 Nanshu Lu 和 Deji Akinwande 带领的两个团队将纹身纸附着到一层兼容的单层 石墨烯上，制成了这种石墨烯电子纹身。石墨烯是仅有一个原子 厚度的碳片。接着，研究人员可以将这层石墨烯像临时纹身一样 贴到皮肤上。由于石墨烯的极端薄度以及制作电子纹身时设计的 灵活曲线，电极可以随着皮肤弯曲变形，让使用者在日常生活中 佩戴它，方便实时传感应用。 Submitted by / 图 片 来 源：Zeyu Yang. Read the paper at DOI: 10.1021/ acsnano.7b02182 查看更多信息请扫描 Scan QR code to get more information

Pollution-fighting flowers

When light shines on these flower- and leaf-shaped crystals, they can break down pollutants in water. The energy from the light excites electrons in the copper(I) oxide (Cu2O) that makes up the crystals. The excited electrons leave behind holes in the crystal's electronic band structure that need to be filled.

To restore its balance of electrons, the material's surface starts sucking electrons from the molecules around it. In a waterbased solution, the flowers take electrons from water molecules, creating radicals that then oxidize pollutants. As a result, the pollutants decompose into less harmful chemicals.

“花”中的污染斗士

当光线照在这些花状和叶状的晶体上时，它们可以分解水中的污 染物。光的能量激发构成晶体的氧化铜（I）中的电子，被激发的 电子在晶体的电子带结构中留下了需要填充的空洞。为了恢复电 子平衡，该材料的表面开始从周围的分子身上吸取电子。在水基 溶液里，这些“花朵”从水分子中获得电子，产生进一步氧化污 染物的自由基。于是，水中的污染物分解为危害较小的化学物质。 Submitted by / 图片来源：Tianyu Liu and Hongliang Zhang

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Fireworks in a flask

Peering down the neck of a round-bottom flask reveals crystals that look like the finale of a firework show spreading across a night sky. Nikhil Gaikwad, a research scholar at the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education & Research, Hyderabad, came across these crystals of a chlorinated pyrrolopyrimidine while synthesizing potential anticancer agents. He generally uses dichloromethane to crystallize and purify his compounds after a chlorination reaction, but this time, Gaikwad decided to use chloroform. Instead of getting the usual needle-shape crystals, he was surprised to find these branching starbursts.

烧瓶里的烟花

从圆底烧瓶的颈部往下望，可以看到晶体像烟花表演的压轴盛景， 在夜空中蔓延。海得拉巴国家药物教育与研究所的研究学者 Nikhil Gaikwad 在合成潜在的抗癌物质的时候发现了这些氯化吡咯烷胺 晶体。Gaikwad 通常在氯化反应后使用二氯甲烷结晶和纯化化合 物，但这一次，他决定使用氯仿。结果，他没有得到通常的针形晶体， 而是惊讶地发现了这些分支开来光芒四射的“烟花”。 Submitted by / 图片来源： Nikhil Gaikwad

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The cytoskeleton in depth

The actin cytoskeleton is a network of protein fibers inside cells that helps them grow and serves as tracks to transport cargo.

To investigate how small molecules interact with the actin cytoskeleton, Paul Jarman at the University of Sheffield got human cells to express fluorescent versions of the actin protein.

He then collected images of the cells at different depths using a laser scanning microscope and artificially colored the actin cytoskeleton in each image. Here the bottom slices are shown in blue, the middle slices in yellow, and the top slices in red.

深探细胞骨架

肌动蛋白细胞骨架是细胞内的蛋白质纤维网络，可帮助细胞生长， 并作为运输货物的轨道。为了研究小分子如何与肌动蛋白细胞骨 架相互作用，谢菲尔德大学的 Paul Jarman 用人类细胞表达了肌 动蛋白的荧光版本。然后，他用激光扫描显微镜收集不同深度的 细胞的图像，并给每张图像中的肌动蛋白细胞骨架人工上色。这 里底部的切片显示为蓝色，中间的切片显示为黄色，顶部的切片 显示为红色。 Submitted by / 图片来源： Paul Jarman

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