Sulfur Hexafluoride: Clean Power Generation’s Dirty Little Secret?

Often used in science shows to lower the pitch of the human voice, is sulfur hexafluoride the clean power industry’s “dirty little secret” because it is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide?

By: Ringo Bones

Ever seen those science shows on TV – now mostly on You Tube – where the presenter uses a gas called sulfur hexafluoride to lower the pitch of their voices like the opposite of what helium does? Well, unfortunately, sulfur hexafluoride unbeknown to many of us, is a very dangerous greenhouse gas – as in it possesses 23,500 times the atmospheric warming power of carbon dioxide and could exacerbate the effects of global warming. Atmospheric scientists had found out that concentrations of sulfur hexafluoride in our atmosphere had been increasing during the past five years. But given it is a very potent greenhouse gas, why is sulfur hexafluoride relatively widely available that science show presenters can casually use it in a demonstration to lower the pitch of their voices?

Due to the recent rush to wean our reliance on fossil fuels in industrial electrical power generation – namely wind turbines, sulfur hexafluoride is a necessity when it comes as fire suppressant in large-scale electrical distribution systems – i.e. high capacity circuit breakers and relays. Given that the alternatives are more damaging to the ozone layer – like the chlorofluorocarbon based Halon –or prohibitively expensive when use in the scale we currently use – i.e. the inert gas argon, it seems that the electrical power industry must now find ways to minimize the leaking of large amounts of sulfur hexafluoride into the atmosphere. Worst still, like most petrochemical derived plastics, sulfur hexafluoride doesn’t break down easily in nature.

Given that the electrical power industry now has notice on the potential problems posed by unnecessary leaking into the atmosphere of sulfur hexafluoride, the due diligence doesn’t solely fall on them. Back in the 1990s, sulfur hexafluoride was used to fill the cushioning bubbles of running shoes and who knows what other consumer products, making a renewed regulation of sulfur hexafluoride throughout the various industries somewhat of an uphill battle. Maybe science show presenters must now find other more earth-friendly alternative gas to be used in demonstrations to lower the pitch of their voices. Maybe the argon gas production industry could pitch in?

The Chain Melted State: A New State Of Matter?

Does the discovery of a new physical state of matter eventually prove to be useful for our day-to-day lives?

By: Ringo Bones

Even though the newly discovered physical state of matter was jokingly called “gushers” when it first hit the press back in April 8, 2019, but the study itself was supported by the European Research Council and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the work was carried out in collaboration with scientists from Xi’an Jiantong University in China, the discovery of a new physical state of matter now holds the promise of improving our daily lives. Some say it could prove useful in designing more reliable folding-screen smart-phones, etc. But what actually is this new state of matter?

This new state of physical matter allows atoms to exist as both solid and liquid at the same time. In the past, atoms in physical materials have been typically thought to be in one of the three physical states – as either solid liquid or a gas. But researchers have discovered that some elements can take on properties of two different states at once that pose a complication to that view. Previously, scientists have not been sure whether those intermediate states were their own distinct state of matter or if they just represented a transition between the two.

This latest research finally managed to clear up that dispute and point to the fact that it is a distinct state of matter now known as “the chain melted state”. And now researchers hope that it can be further examined to find more uses for the unexpected discovery. By subjecting the element potassium to extreme environments – such as pushing it up against high temperatures and pressures – were combined with powerful computer simulations to allow scientists to study the unusual state of matter.

The potassium specimen showed parts of both liquid and solid states. When subjected to those conditions, most of the elements formed into a lattice structure of the kind that would be expected in a solid – but there was also a second set of atoms that were in a liquid arrangement. The University of Edinburgh scientists in the study found that more than half a dozen other elements, including sodium and bismuth, were able to reach this state if they were put in the right environments.

Dr. Andreas Hermann of the university’s School of Physics and Astronomy led the study which is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. He said: “Potassium is one of the simplest metals that we know and yet if you squeeze it, it forms very complicated structures. We have shown that this unusual but stable state is part solid and part liquid. Recreating this unusual state in other materials could have all kinds of applications.” 

2019 – International Year of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements

Did you know that 150 years ago Russian scientist Dmitri Mendeleev discovered and established the Periodic System for the benefit for all mankind?

By: Ringo Bones

2019 became the official International Year of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements after the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed it during its 74^th Plenary Meeting back in December 20, 2017. And based on the 202 EX/Decision 43, the 2019 International Year of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements – also known as the IYPT 2019 – was adopted by the UNESCO General Conference at its 39^th Session (39 C/decision 60). Back in April 1, 2018, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) joined in the planning and coordination to make the IYPT 2019 to be “more visible” to everyone concerned. Well, the IUPAC succeeded in making the 2011 International Year of Chemistry more or less visible to everyone concerned back then.

1869 is considered as the year of the discovery of the Periodic System by the Russian scientist Dmitri Mendeleev. The IYPT 2019 also commemorates the 150^th anniversary of the establishment of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements. The International Year aims to recognize the importance of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements as one of the most important and influential achievements in modern science reflecting the essence not only of chemistry, but also of physics, biology and other basic sciences disciplines. The IYPT 2019 is also an opportunity to reflect upon many aspects of the periodic table, including its history, the role of women in research, global trends and perspectives on science for sustainable development and the social and economic impacts of this field.  

Said to be inspired by the card game solitaire, Dmitri Mendeleev’s periodic table of chemical elements is based on the Russian chemist’s discovery that a natural order existed among the elements. Mendeleev arranged the chemical elements according to their atomic weight and then pointed out that elements side by side in adjacent columns – i.e. vanadium, niobium and tantalum – behaved in the same way chemically. Mendeleev’s newly discovered periodic table of chemical elements was so accurate that it allowed him to accurately predict the chemical properties of elements not yet discovered during his lifetime. By the way, Dmitri Mendeleev was born in 1834 in Siberia and passed away in 1934.

Did John G. Trump Send Nikola Tesla To The Obscurity Dustbin of History?

Given that President Trump had recently managed to drag his rather obscure scientist uncle with his latest climate change denying Tweet, did John G. Trump played his part in sending Nikola Tesla to the obscurity dustbin of history?

By: Ringo Bones

Despite of being praised by Albert Einstein as the smartest scientist who ever lived, it wasn’t until the mid to late 1980 – primarily through the Californian heavy metal band Tesla and sometimes not even so – where non scientists and non engineers became familiar again with the life and work of Nikola Tesla. Fast forward to 2018 where President Trump mentioned his MIT trained scientist paternal uncle named John G. Trump as the reason why he is “genetically qualified” to declare that climate change is a hoax. Politicking aside, did John G. Trump was really responsible for sending Nikola Tesla to obscurity?

John George Trump was a physicist who got his PhD from MIT in 1933. In 1942 he became Secretary of the Microwave Committee – a sub-committee of the National Defense Research Committee. When Nikola Tesla passed away in 1943 in the New York Hotel, Trump was one of the top experts who declared that Tesla’s papers were not of strategic significance despite after declassification of some of them in May 2018 that there’s a plausibility that Tesla’s famed “Death Ray” might have worked.

Before he passed away in February 21, 1985, the then US President Ronald Reagan has awarded John G. Trump the National Medal of Science in 1983. I think this was probably the last of the general public had heard of him after being recently mentioned in President Trump’s “crazy climate change denial Tweets” in the autumn of 2018. Given his sway of authority in America’s wartime department during World War II, is it fair to say that John G. Trump really possessed the power and authority to send the Croatian émigré and inventor way ahead of his time Nikola Tesla to the obscurity dustbin of history?