The same researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UI) who came up with self-healing plastic have described in Nature a new technique that utilizes mechanical force to alter the course of chemical reactions.
“This is a fundamentally new way of doing chemistry,” said UI’s Jeffrey Moore, explaining how mechanical energy allows chemists to “go into molecules” and pull on specific bonds to drive desired reactions.
Demonstrating the technique, Moore and colleagues placed a mechanically active molecule – dubbed a mechanophore – at the center of a long polymer chain. The polymer chain was then stretched in opposite directions by a flow field created with cavitating bubbles, subjecting the mechanophore to a mechanical tug of war.
“We have demonstrated that it is now possible to use mechanical force to steer chemical reactions along pathways that are unattainable by conventional means,” Moore said. “We look forward to developing additional mechanophores whose chemical reactivity will be activated by external force.”
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