Scientists at the University of Toronto have found a way to select the outcome of chemical reactions by employing an elusive and long-sought factor known as the impact parameter.
Scientists at the University of Toronto have found a way to select the outcome of chemical reactions by employing an elusive and long-sought factor known as the impact parameter.
The team of U of T chemists, led by Nobel Prize-winning researcher John Polanyi, has found a means to select the impact parameter or miss-distance by which a reagent molecule misses a target molecule, thereby altering the products of chemical reaction. The findings are published today in Science Advances.
“Chemists toss molecules at other molecules all the time in hopes of making something new,” says Polanyi, University Professor in the department of chemistry at U of T. “In this study we have found a way to control the outcome by aiming a projectile molecule at a target molecule, with an accuracy of a small fraction of the diameter of the target molecule.”
Molecular dynamics in chemistry is a lot like a game of billiards. Just as a billiard player sends the incoming ball towards the target ball, chemists launch one molecule towards another to produce a chemical reaction. However, this can be done, it is now clear, either by chance as has been the norm, or by design as the new work shows to be possible.
Read more at University of Toronto
Image via University of Toronto
