Chemistry Blog

nuclear?

Like Albert, I’ve also been asked to fill in for Mitch while he’s gone. Since Mitch is a nuclear chemist, I wanted to do something related to that. Unfortunately, in the process, I realized that most of what I know about nuclear science, I learned from the Simpsons. Since I’ve never had a class in nuclear chemistry, the extent of what I’ve learned about it in school is “There’s a hot spot by the sink, so don’t get too close if you want children.” (The class was held in an old radiochemistry lab.)
I wanted to take a picture of the local Van de Graaff accelerator, but it doesn’t look so exciting from the outside, so here is a more impressive-looking picture from the ESA.

Van de Graaff accelerators are used to cause nuclear reactions, producing radioactive isotopes, such as ¹⁵O and ¹³N. They can also be used to produce neutron beams for spectroscopic use. Neutron spectroscopy is pretty cool, for people interested in vibrational modes of crystals.
For people like me who shudder at the mention of the word “phonon,” the nucleus is also involved in a more familiar type of spectroscopy: NMR!!! Remember, NMR requires a magnetically active nucleus such as ¹³C or ¹H. (Not to be confused with a radioactive nucleus like ²³⁵U.)

Enjoy your time off, Mitch!

Psi*Psi