Category
Chemistry
All Nolege News articles on Chemistry.
3 articles
Chemistry
Most of a journey's pollution leaves the exhaust in the first two minutes, before the converter has woken up
A catalytic converter contains a few grams of platinum-group metal divided so finely that most of its atoms sit on a surface. It is a remarkable piece of nanoscale engineering that does nothing at all until it is hot — which is why short trips pollute far more than their distance suggests.
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Chemistry
The same molecule, packed two ways: why chocolate turns white and a drug once vanished from pharmacy shelves
A solid's properties are not decided by its molecule alone but by how those molecules stack. Change the packing and the same compound melts differently, dissolves differently, and can stop working as a medicine. Here is what polymorphism is and why it costs pharmaceutical companies fortunes.
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Chemistry
How catalysts speed up chemical reactions
A catalyst makes a reaction go faster without being used up itself. Here is how it works — by offering an easier path over the energy barrier — and why catalysts underpin almost everything from fuel to fertiliser.
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