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The epic collapse called for some self reflection.

Less than two weeks after the Los Angeles Clippers squandered a 3-1 series lead to the Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference semifinals, Clippers owner Steve Ballmer did something he would have previously considered unthinkable.

Ballmer met with Doc Rivers, a man he considered a fantastic championship coach and a mentor. Ballmer then said he and Rivers concluded they should end a six-year partnership that yielded six playoff appearances without advancing past the second round.

It's very important to me that we not do anything in the heat of the moment, Ballmer said in a conference call Wednesday. That's not rational, like, 'Oh, we lost a game.'That's not sane. We took our time. Doc and I took our time together and arrived to the point we did.

After that, the Clippers had an exhaustive coaching search. They then simply hired from within by elevating assistant coach Tyronn Lue, whom Ballmer considered to be the best coach in the NBA four years after coaching the Cleveland Cavaliers to a league championship.

Ty Lue has learned from accomplished coaches (Doc Rivers, Gregg Popovich, Brad Stevens, Nick Nurse, Erik Spoelstra, Stan Van Gundy, Scott Skiles).(Photo: The Associated Press)

It's no secret we have had a difficult month, Clippers president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank said. We lost a series we were in position to win. We said goodbye to a coach we all greatly admire. We all take responsibility for what took place and have been working hard toward making the necessary improvements. The first step was finding the best head coach to lead us forward and grow with our group.

And with that, Lue has spent the past month pondering a question players have raised themselves. Why did a championship-contending team lack consistent chemistry?

We're talking about chemistry and continuity, and it's not more so off the court and guys not liking each other, Lue said. It was hard to get continuity and chemistry throughoutthe season because we didn't have a lot of practice time for our starting unit or our whole team for a large part of the season. When we talk about chemistry and continuity, it's more so on the basketball court of just being familiar with guys.

The Clippers spent the 2019-20 season missing a combined 114 games due to injuries and fielding 33 different starting lineups. That included Kawhi Leonard missing 13 games because of his left knee as well as Paul George sitting for 16 following surgery on both shoulders.

That did not stop the Clippers from finishing with the Western Conferences second-best record (49-23). But the Clippers experienced uneven performances during the season restart in the NBAs campus bubble partly because of their continued lack of continuity.

Lou Williams, the Clippers scoring specialist off the bench, spent 10 days in quarantine after veering from a pre-approved trip to his mentors funeral to stop at an Atlanta strip club for takeout food. Patrick Beverley, the defensive stalwart, missed four games. Montrezl Harrell, the NBAs 6th Man of the Year and adependable pick-and-roll scorer and defender, missed the season restart while spending time with his ailing grandmother.

Even when the Clippers finally fielded a full roster against Denver, they still struggled. George shot a combined 10-of-47 in Games 2-of-4 against Dallas in their first-round series, and attributed the slump toward mental health issues in the bubble. Despite rebounding with three more 30-point performances, George had only 10 points in a Game 7 loss to Denver. After staying consistent for most of the postseason, Leonard shot 6-of-22 in that same game.

I don't think we played our best basketball most of the time, frankly, we were in the bubble, Ballmer said. Certainly the way we ended our season, that really disappointed me.

Afterwards, the Clippers did not blame Rivers solely for that outcome.

We pride ourselves on being a tough, gritty, resilient team and for many different reasons, we weren't, Lawrence said. That's something we all have to look in the mirror; that we didn't respond to Denver's constant jabs to us; that we weren't able to be that tough, resilient group. So we have got to look deep within why that happened. But also give Denver credit. It's not as much as we lost as they took it, and you have to acknowledge that they were the better team for that series."

Still, the Clippers determined Lue as a better candidate both because of his familiarity with the roster and having a track record with a similar circumstance.

The Cavaliers fired head coach David Blatt midway through the 2015-16 season despite making the NBA Finals the previous season and starting off his second year with a 30-11 record. Lue then proved he could handle a group led by LeBron James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love that overcame a 3-1 series deficit to the Golden State Warriors in the NBA Finals.

Can Lue pull off a similar feat with the Clippers? No pressure, but his ability to do that might influence if Leonard and George stay since both can opt out of their contracts next summer.

I'm big on pressure because if you don't have pressure that doesn't mean you have a chance of winning the championship, Lue said. When you talk about pressure, that means you're in a situation to win. That's what I want to do. I want to be one of the greatest coaches.

Ballmer already sees Lue as one of those great coaches.

Lue learned from accomplished coaches (Rivers, Gregg Popovich, Brad Stevens, Nick Nurse, Erik Spoelstra, Stan Van Gundy, Scott Skiles). He played for the NBAs winningest coach (Phil Jackson). He played with a demanding superstar (Kobe Bryant). He coached a demanding superstar (James).

After the Cavs fired Lue following a 0-6 start in the 2018-19 season, he spent time bettering himself. He consulted his mentors, watched film and drew up plays. He improved his sleeping patterns and diet to lose 35 pounds.

Hes a thinker, he's a connecter, he's a dynamic leader who lifts you, even as he challenges you, Frank said of Lue. He's got the X's and O's. He's got the resume. He's also got the feel. It comes across in the way he sees the game from every angle and the way he relays his vision.

Still, Lue has some areas to address. Will Lue handle Leonards load management differently to ensure better chemistry?

It's something that I have to talk to with the medical staff and performance team, Lue said. I can't answer that question right now, but the most important thing is the health of our players.

Lue has already spoken to Leonard and George after his hiring. Once Lue finalizes hisstaff, how will he maximize what Leonard and George can offer on the court?

They have to adjust to my system and my program, but also have to be able to adjust to them, to their comfort zone and what makes them better, Lue said. It starts on the defensive end with those two guys of setting the tone every night.

Lastly, Lue conceded the team needs to play at faster at a better pace and improve its ball movement and spacing. But how will he handle a leadership vacuum that has entailed a stoic Leonard and George as well as a more outspoken bench unit in Williams, Beverley and Harrell?

You're not going to have the best players be the natural leaders at all times. It doesn't happen like that, Lue said. A lot of leadership has to come from me. I think it comes from Kawhi. I think it comes from PG and I think it comes from Lou and Pat Beverley. I don't think you can just say leadership isone person and put that demand on one person to do that. I think we have to do it as a committee.

Will that be enough for the Clippers to take the NBA championship trophy away from the Lakers? The team will find out within the next year whe
ther it can climb through its championship window.

I'm excited because the roster is unbelievable, Lue said. To have a chance and an opportunity to coach a team like the Clippers? I love their roster, I love the team, and I love what they stand for as an organization.

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Clippers address Doc Rivers departure, Ty Lues hiring and lack of chemistry - USA TODAY

The discoveries that are recognised by the chemistry Nobel prize often exhibit certain features: inspiration, intelligence, rivalry, disputes about credit and no small amount of sheer luck. I would add the ability to recognise something important when you see it to that list. There is a long list of journals that rejected the early Crispr papers that led to this years award, often with notes that the manuscripts werent important enough to even review, or that their discoveries were already known.

My classic example is ferrocene, the first-of-its-kind organometallic sandwich compound that set off waves of discovery in a whole field. Unbeknown to each other, at least three groups prepared it independently. Only the second (Thomas Kealy and Peter Pauson at Duquesne University, US) and third (Samuel Miller, John Tebboth, and John Tremaine at British Oxygen) published their discoveries of the unexpected and weirdly unreactive yellow-orange product, nearly simultaneously in 1952.

Neither group was quite sure about the structure of the new compound. The Miller paper proposed two cyclopentadienes attached to a central iron atom by single bonds. Pauson ventured the same guess. He was bothered by the compounds stability, though, and wondered if it might be more ionic, with two negatively charged rings and a +2 iron as an odd sort of salt.

Neither Ernst Fischer in Munich, Germany, nor the team of Robert Woodward and Geoffrey Wilkinson at Harvard University, US, felt comfortable with those proposals. Moreover, they all felt that there was something unusual and important about the orange stuff, because no conventional structure seemed to explain its properties and reactions. Both investigations came to the same conclusion in early 1952: a sandwich of two (now aromatic) coordinated cyclopentadienyl rings with a fully booked-up (and thus unreactive) iron atom in the middle.

Generations of chemistry students have since grown up with this structure, so its hard for us to imagine how bizarre a proposal this was. Famously, the editor of the Journal of the American Chemical Society wrote to Woodward that, although he was accepting the paper, I cannot help feeling that you have been at the hashish again. But x-ray crystallography quickly confirmed the idea in every detail, and metal-organic chemistry has never looked back. A host of metallocenes followed in an extremely spirited competition between the Fischer and Wilkinson labs, and these led to even more unheard-of coordination complexes, along with new synthetic methods, useful reagents and catalysts and new ideas about chemical bonds themselves.

The Nobel award came in 1973, after more than enough time had passed to show the discsoverys importance. It went to Fischer and Wilkinson, which led two days later to a letter from Woodward to the chair of the Nobel committee. Woodward wrote, he said, to let you know, most respectfully, that you have inadvertently, I am sure committed a grave injustice. He spoke of Wilkinson as a junior colleague who was skeptical of Woodwards solo inspiration, but whom hed done a favour by including him in the work. Wilkinson, needless to say, disputed this version strongly. And the Nobel committee (as always) did not second-guess or revise their award, a job no doubt made easier by the fact that they had already given a chemistry Nobel to Woodward eight years before.

But now we have to return to the beginning. There were three groups that had prepared ferrocene, and I have not yet mentioned the earliest of them all. That was a team at Union Carbide, who had sent hot cyclopentadiene vapour through an iron pipe apparatus at some point in the late 1940s. They were annoyed to find the equipment had unexpectedly clogged with yellow sludge. Someone kept a sample and everyone went on to the next experiment. Years later, re-analysis showed that the sludge was (of course) ferrocene. Had anyone had the curiosity to analyse it, and enough imagination to realise what its structure might be, they might well have had a Nobel of their own. Instead, they scrubbed their Nobel prize out with a brush and threw it into the bin. That should make any chemist stop and think about their failed experiments, shouldnt it?

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The Nobel prize that got binned | Opinion - Chemistry World

TROY A scientist at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has created a coronavirus transmission model inspired by one he uses to predict chemical reactions to help the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention forecast COVID-19 deaths across the country.

Developed by Yunfeng Shi, an associate professor of materials science and engineering at Rensselaer, and Jeff Ban, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Washington, the model uses fatality data collected by Johns Hopkins University and mobility data collected by Google to predict disease spread based on how much a population is moving within its community.

The researchers tested their model against data from 20 of the hardest hit counties in the United States and found it to be valid. Their findings are available in preprint on medRxiv, an online repository of papers that have been screened but not peer-reviewed.

The team has also been able to show how the forecasts change as schools open, communities lockdownand masks are mandated. The researchers website, which illustrates those forecasts, was developed by Tanooj Shah, a graduate student in Shis group.

Theres no mystery as to why theres an outbreak, Shi said. Theres no mystery to how we control it. The science is absolutely there. We want to use the model to give the local government some concrete predictive insight to implement certain policies.

Shi is a computational materials scientist who was curious about how simple chemical reaction analogs could be applied to forecasting COVID-19 transmission. Combined with Bans expertise in transportation and mobility, the two have developed a straightforward model that has been accurately predicting disease transmission.

They are now sharing their unique approach to forecasting COVID-19 spread with the CDC on a weekly basis, along with a collective of other research teams made up of infectious disease specialists, machine learning experts and modelers from across the nation. Combined, the models form an ensemble forecast from a multitude of perspectives.

The novelty of the model lies in the integration of physical modeling and data-driven approaches, which can bring useful insights about the infection and outbreak of COVID-19, Ban said. The findings of the research, such as the critical relative mobility indicator, can be used by policymakers for making informed decisions about when and how to reopen local economies.

The engineers plan to continue sharing their model results each week for the duration of the pandemic.

Pawel Keblinksi, the head of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Rensselaer, said the model is unique because of its simplicity and that it demonstrates that social mobility is a major contributing factor in controlling the spread of the virus.

"This is an example of the minimalist approach that Professor Shi used successfully to model complex physical reactive processes, including polymer or complex crystal growth," Keblinski said.

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RPI researcher uses simple formula for chemical reactions to predict COVID-19 trajectory - Times Union

Washington, D.C.

Today, 11 community, scientist, environmental, and environmental justicegroups represented by Earthjustice sued the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over a weak national emission rule for hundreds of chemical facilities whose pollution is linked to cancer. The Miscellaneous Organic Chemical Manufacturing, or MON rule, regulates toxic emissions for about 200 chemical plants across the country. These plants emit over 7,400 tons a year of dangerous air pollutants,includingatleast 2,000 pounds of ethylene oxide, an aggressive carcinogen. EPA updated the rule earlier this year after the national air toxics assessment showed this pollution is contributing tocancer risk hot spots in the United States.

Industrial plants covered by the MON rule handle chemicals used in the production of solvents, plastics, and pesticides. During this process, potent carcinogens, like ethylene oxide,1,3-butadiene, benzene, formaldehyde, and other toxic fumes that people breathe, are dumped into neighboring communities.The MON rule leaves people in surrounding areas exposed to cancer risks of 200-in-1 million, twice the level EPA admits is unacceptable under the Clean Air Act.

EPAs recognizes that communities are facing a blatantly unacceptable cancer threat from breathingtoxic airevery day, yet it does little to fixthis problem,saidEmmaCheuse, Earthjustice attorney. Its unjust and wrong that the agency isagainrefusing to set standards that fully protectchildren and families livingnext topetrochemicalsources. Now, in the middle of arespiratory pandemic, communitieshave totake EPA to court toensure that chemical plants use up-to-date pollution controls, and common-sensefencelinemonitoring for the toxic air theyrelease into nearby neighborhoods.

MON facilities are located around the U.S., but especially concentrated in Texas and Louisiana, and disproportionately affect Black, Latino, and low-income communities. Other states with MON facilities include West Virginia, Illinois, and South Carolina. EPA's MON rule allows periodic, uncontrolled releases of chemical pollution, while communities need around-the-clock protection from toxic air. This rule allows facilities to spew fugitive emissions into communities without monitoring, and permits facilities to do so repeatedly, even if pollution levels are too high.

Our neighborhoods are not sacrifice zones for petrochemical companies. EPAs national air toxics standards must be the strongest necessary to prevent cancers that EPA itself says the pollution from these chemical plants can cause. Those of us in Louisiana have seen first-hand the type of harm this type of pollution can do to communities, saidSharon Lavigne, founder of RISE St. James.

As communities push for monitoring and stronger rules for chemical plants, the petrochemical industry is expanding in places like Cancer Alley in Louisiana, which is already facing elevated cancer levels due to industrial fumes. In fact, Formosa Plastics petrochemical complex in St. James Parish is still on the table while RISE St. James and their partners are fighting its illegal permits in Louisiana state court. The complex would include 14 plants just one mile from an elementary school in a predominantly Black neighborhood. A weak MON chemical plant rule is disastrous for the health of St. James Parish, particularly if plans for the Formosa complexare allowed toproceed.

EPAhas known of the pollution and extreme health harms associated with MON plants for years; still, it chose inaction. According to federal law, EPA was supposed to review and update the national MON standards by 2014, but years later, the agency had still failed to meet the deadline. Communities affected by these emissions represented by Earthjustice, forced EPA to finish the rule through litigation and in 2017 a court ordered EPA to review and update this rule.

Earthjustice is representing RISE St. James, Louisiana Environmental Action Network, Louisiana Bucket Brigade, TX Environmental Justice Advocacy Services (t.e.j.a.s.), Air Alliance Houston, Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform, Environmental Integrity Project, Union of Concerned Scientists, and the Sierra Club.These groups have also filed a petition for reconsideration with EPA.RISE St. James, Louisiana Bucket Brigade, and allied groups, represented by Earthjustice, are alsofighting the illegal and dangerous air permitsLouisiana issued to Formosa Plastics, andchallenging another rule(ethylene production) that would apply to Formosa Plastics and similar petrochemical facilities as illegally weak.

It is morally reprehensiblethat EPA is treatingcertain communitiesasdisposable andleft to suffer unacceptable cancer threats from exposure to petrochemical pollution.We will continue to fight to ensure thatEPAs national air toxics standardsare as strong as possibleto save lives andpreventillnessesthatEPA should not allow communities to face just because they live near chemical plants, saidMichele Roberts, national co-coordinator of the Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform.

Todays suit is a step toward righting a grievous wrong. This administrationsweak MON rule does little to protect our health and instead leaves our communities at serious risk of cancer, both by the enormous emissions it allows and by pretending to be protective when in fact its just the opposite. We are all at risk from these emissions, but Black people in Louisiana are in the bullseye. Its past time to change this situation, and we are filing suit today to do justthat,saidAnneRolfes, LA Bucket Brigade.

We cannot applaud EPA for doingwhat it thinks isthe bare minimum, because the agency is not even doing what it knows is needed to protect peoples health, based on the best available science. EPA also cannot avoid ensuring that facilities use up-to-date pollution controls, and practices, including real-timefencelinemonitoring, to protect public health. People in Texas deserve the strongest protection available for our health,saidJuan Parras,t.e.j.a.sExecutive Director.

The EPA rule does not go far enough to reduce toxic air pollution and goes too far in allowing loopholes, including an unlimited number of so-called unforeseeable accidents known as force majeure. The problem is notactsof God, it is acts of man, saidLouis Zeller, Executive Director of the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League.

EPA missed an opportunity in the MON rule to use its authority under the Clean Air Act to reduce the chemical burden on environmental justice communities exposed to the highest emissions of hazardous pollutants, including ethylene oxide. The science supports stronger action to limit emissions and expand monitoring for communities who continue to experience oppression due to social, health, and environmental disparities exacerbated by a global pandemic. EPA may be willing to abandon its mission and leave communities behind, but we wont allow it, saidGenna Reed, Union of Concerned Scientists.

The EPA knows how many plastic/petrochemical and other factories are spewing their pollution onto communities predominantly populated by people of color. The EPA knows that people living near these plants are going to have a dramatically increased risk of cancer because of the pollution. Butit is clear that thisEPA doesnt care at all about harm to our communities. It really is a travesty that we have to sue our Environmental Protection Agency for environmental protections that the agency itself knows should be in place,saidVivianStockman, Executive Director at Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition,based in Huntington, WV.

Many communities face the insult of hosting more than one of these dangerous chemical facilities, yet USEPA still fails to strengthen the standards needed to protect communities from toxic air emissions they are releasing, which can cause particular harm to children and to women at risk of breast cancer, saidJane Williams, Chair
of the Sierra Club National Clean Air Team.

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Groups Sue Over Weak Emission Standards for Chemical Plants Linked to Cancer - Earthjustice

Recreational Fishermen Noticed Fish Kill; Chemical Spilled Used in Security Paper

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has told Appvion that it failed to report a chemical spill and is asking the company to investigate, explain and plan to prevent future similar releases.

In a letter dated Sept. 17, 2020, the DEP stated, "On August 27, 2020 the [DEP} responded to a report of a fish kill in the Frankstown Branch of the Juniata River. During an investigation of the incident, dead fish were observed over a 4.5 mile stretch of the river that extended upstream to an area approximately 500 feet below the Appvion industrial wastewater treatment plant outfall pipe."

Fishermen noticed

Recreational fishing social media websites noted the kill, with a moderator of paflyfish.com posting on Aug. 28, "Reported fish kill on the Frankstown Branch reported on FB ... Major fish kill being reported on the Frankstown Branch. Roaring Spring Paper Mill apparently had a chemical spill. No further details forthcoming. Please post more info as it becomes available."

Another fisherman posted, "I spoke to the person that made the report. No reported brown trout found dead and only warmwater species. I'm not saying this makes it any better, but just noting it was misreported with no wild trout OBSERVED to be affected."

Permit limit exceeded

The DEP stated that it contacted Robert Stasik, environmental manager for the Spring Mill plant, regarding the alleged spill.

"After contacting Mr. Stasik, Environmental Manager with Appvion Inc., the Department was notified of a chemical spill at the paper mill that entered the treatment plant on August 19, 2020. Mr. Stasik also mentioned that [a daily maximum permit limit] was exceeded on August 20, 2020."

The DEP subsequently conducted an investigation and noted that "Appvion failed to immediately report a spill of approximately 3,700 gallons of the chemical Chlorostain to their wastewater treatment process in violation of [the company's] NPDES permit."

NPDES stands for "National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System."

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), a NPDES permit is issued under the The Clean Water Act, which prohibits discharging "pollutants" into a "water of the United States" without a NPDES permit.

A NPDES permit sets limits on what can be discharged, monitoring and reporting requirements, and other provisions to ensure that the discharge does not hurt water quality or people's health.

According to the product sheet from the company that makes it, chlorostain is manufactured especially for use in the production of security papers. This product cannot be detected as applied. However, when paper treated with Chlorostain is exposed to a commercial ink eradicator, an orange-brown stain develops. Chlorostain is often printed on check papers with the words "fraud" or "void", which appear immediately when an ink eradicator is applied.

The DEP report notes that chemical's official description sheet states that the substance is toxic to humans but does not indicate its effects if spilled into an aquatic environment.

Appvion produces thermal, carbonless and security papers at the Spring Mill plant. The company's headquarters is in Appleton, Wisc.

Investigation

Following news of the fish kill on Aug. 26, Frederick Clark, a water quality specialist with the DEP conducted an investigation, including a check of the affected streams.

Clark reported, "In the afternoon of August 26, 2020 I examined the stream from the Loop Road Bridge in Frankstown Township, Blair County, about 150 feet upstream of the elementary school and observed 8 dead fish. The fish were 6-12 inches long and included carp, catfish and white suckers. The fish appeared partially decomposed. The water in the stream was clear with a light reddish-brown tint. There was no noticeable sheen or odor, except for the smell of decaying fish."

Clark investigated further upstream and at the pipe where the plant discharges into the Frankstown Branch of the Juniata River, where he noted, "The discharge had its normal dark reddish-brown tint and mild odor. I did not see any dead fish at the outfall but did start to observe dead and decayed fish starting about 500 feet downstream, near the end of Cottage Lane. There were about 10 dead fish along the bank, some partially decayed or eaten and sometimes just skin or bones."

Further upstream from the outfall, Clark noted, "the water is clear and there were no signs of fish fatalities."

Clark called Stasik, who reported, that there "was an incident last Wednesday August 19, 2020. About 3,700 gallons of a chemical called Chlorostain overflowed from a holding tank and was conveyed to the industrial waste treatment plant. This incident was not previously reported to the [DEP]."

Stasik told Clark that when he was notified of the spill in the late afternoon of the Aug. 19, he (Stasik) "instructed his operator to perform field checks of the effluent at points within the treatment plant for ammonia. He did this because a similar Chlorostain spill in 2016 caused a permit exceedance for ammonia."

Stasik told Clark that "none of the ammonia checks conducted on the 19th showed abnormally high results and the ammonia level of the effluent was below the permit daily maximum."

Stasik also reported that "none of the ammonia checks conducted on the 19th showed abnormally high results and the ammonia level of the effluent was below the permit daily maximum."

DEP's conclusion

The DEP concluded that "Appvion failed to immediately report a spill of approximately 3,700 gallons of the chemical Chlorostain to their wastewater treatment process in violation of NPDES permit" and "In addition, Appvion indicated that they violated [an] effluent limit on August 20, 2020 and August 21, 2020 in violation ... of [its] NPDES permit."

The letter from DEP requests that Appvion "investigate these violations and submit a written report" to the DEP by Oct. 2, 2020.

The report is to include:

a detailed timeline of the events leading up to and immediately after the spill took place

an explanation the cause of the violations

a description of any actions taken

any measures put into place or planned to prevent future violations.

Clark reported that Stasik said "that based on his observation of the treatment plant and the ammonia testing results, he did not believe the chemical spill had an adverse impact on the plant or the plant effluent and that is why he did not report the incident to the DEP" and that "the company is investigating ways to prevent another overflow of the chemical storage tank such as changing the valving or installing a high-level alarm."

The Herald's information regarding this event came from documents provided by the Pa. DEP when requested.

Appvion did not return calls from the Herald requesting comment.

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Appvion Accused of Spilling Chemical Into Frankstown Branch - Morrisons Cove Herald

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Oct. 15, 2020) Researchers in the University of Kentucky Department of Chemistry are studying how smoke from wildfires can affect public health even hundreds of miles away from the source.

Associate professor Marcelo Guzman, along with graduate student Sohel Rana, say that molecules released from forest fires can become more water soluble, and likely toxic, over the two weeks that smoke is transported through the atmosphere. In addition to warming the atmosphere, these molecules can cause a host of respiratory issues in humans when inhaled.

As the biomass in trees, bushes, grass and peat are burned, large quantities of smoke, soot and other pollutants are emitted to the atmosphere, Guzman said. The smoke can then rise several kilometers in altitude and spread across large continental regions, polluting the air of distant areas. For example, many residents in the states of California, Washington and Oregon have recently experienced the poor air quality of hazy smoke.

Every year, thousands of hectares of land are engulfed by forest fires across the globe. So far in 2020, more than 2.6 million hectares in the western United States have been consumed by fires.

This ongoing UK project, sponsored by the National Science Foundation, is examining how emissions from wildfires change with time in the atmosphere to create new chemicals that impact the health of societies and the Earths climate. In the lab, Guzman and Rana are studying the heterogeneous atmospheric chemistry of methoxyphenols, which are among the most abundant molecules emitted during biomass burning. The team highlighted that when methoxyphenols react at interfaces, such as on the surface of cloud and fog waters, as well as aerosol particles from pollution, electron and proton transfer processes are favored to quickly convert aromatic molecules into highly water-soluble products.

When you look at the mechanisms that these methoxyphenols and phenolic aldehydes undergo when exposed to background ozone gas and hydroxyl free radicals during atmospheric transport, you can start explaining the common observation of multifunctional carboxylic acids as abundant species in a lot of particles in the air we breathe, Guzman said. The report identifies unique reaction channels that can be used to distinguish the contribution of atmospheric processing of biomass burning emissions over other possible sources of multifunctional carboxylic acids. The work is not only fundamentally interesting, but identifies specific signatures for the daytime transformation of methoxyphenols emitted from forest fires as they age in the atmosphere.

To do this, the researchers use a special instrument in the lab that replicates the fast reaction between the methoxyphenols markers of biomass burning and ozone gas at the interface of air with micrometer-size water droplets. They then vary the concentrations and acidity in the experiments to see how the interfacial chemistry changes for different conditions occurring in the environment.

We are trying to understand the dominant transformations of the methoxyphenols from smoke in the atmosphere, determine their lifetime and establish how they chemically evolve at interfaces, Guzman said. We want to contribute new understanding of their impacts on human health and climate. Are the aged molecules more toxic? How do the structural changes of the molecules contribute to create particles that interact with sunlight affecting climate?

Guzman and Rana found that while in the air, the methoxyphenols in smoke react with ozone and hydroxyl radicals to become oxidized and highly reactive. A person breathing in these reactive compounds can suffer oxidative damage of cells, especially in the respiratory track and lungs. In addition, these reactive compounds can make some people more prone to other health problems.

Guzman also said that characterizing the chemical processing of pollution from wildfires and domestic woodburning can help to determine if so-called brown carbon in soot emitted from fires contributes to absorb more heat from the sun or not.

While the many small molecules in brown carbon can be quickly photobleached by the sun, the larger molecules are far more resistant, possibly contributing to the heating effect in the atmosphere, Guzman said.

Find out more about the research "Oxidation of Phenolic Aldehydes by Ozone and Hydroxyl Radicals at the AirWater Interface" in theJournal of Physical ChemistryatDOI: 10.1021/acs.jpca.0c05944.

Also, read more about the projectat https://uknow.uky.edu/research/chemistrys-guzman-study-atmospheric-reactions-pollution.

Research reported in this publication was supported by theNational Science Foundation under Award Number1903744.The opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

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Wildfire Smoke Toxicity Increases Over Time, Poses Public Health Risk, According to UK Chemist - UKNow

Learning Objectives

Chemistry is the study of matterwhat it consists of, what its properties are, and how it changes. Being able to describe the ingredients in a cake and how they change when the cake is baked is called chemistry. Matter is anything that has mass and takes up spacethat is, anything that is physically real. Some things are easily identified as matterthis book, for example. Others are not so obvious. Because we move so easily through the air, we sometimes forget that it, too, is matter.

Chemistry is one branch of science. Science is the process by which we learn about the natural universe by observing, testing, and then generating models that explain our observations. Because the physical universe is so vast, there are many different branches of science (Figure (PageIndex{1})). Thus, chemistry is the study of matter, biology is the study of living things, and geology is the study of rocks and the earth. Mathematics is the language of science, and we will use it to communicate some of the ideas of chemistry.

Although we divide science into different fields, there is much overlap among them. For example, some biologists and chemists work in both fields so much that their work is called biochemistry. Similarly, geology and chemistry overlap in the field called geochemistry. Figure (PageIndex{1}) shows how many of the individual fields of science are related.

There are many other fields of science, in addition to the ones (biology, medicine, etc.) listed

Alchemy Is in No way Chemistry!

As our understanding of the universe has changed over time, so has the practice of science. Chemistry in its modern form, based on principles that we consider valid today, was developed in the 1600s and 1700s. Before that, the study of matter was known as alchemy and was practiced mainly in China, Arabia, Egypt, and Europe.

Alchemy was a somewhat mystical and secretive approach to learning how to manipulate matter. Practitioners, called alchemists, thought that all matter was composed of different proportions of the four basic elementsfire, water, earth, and airand believed that if you changed the relative proportions of these elements in a substance, you could change the substance. The long-standing attempts to transmute common metals into gold represented one goal of alchemy. Alchemys other major goal was to synthesize the philosophers stone, a material that could impart long lifeeven immortality. Alchemists used symbols to represent substances, some of which are shown in the accompanying figure. This was not done to better communicate ideas, as chemists do today, but to maintain the secrecy of alchemical knowledge, keeping others from sharing in it.

In spite of this secrecy, in its time alchemy was respected as a serious, scholarly endeavor. Isaac Newton, the great mathematician and physicist, was also an alchemist.

Alchemy and the ACS (American Chemical Society)

While watching the video below and answer the following questions.

Questions

The study of modern chemistry has many branches, but can generally be broken down into five main disciplines, or areas of study:

In practice, chemical research is often not limited to just one of the five major disciplines. A particular chemist may use biochemistry to isolate a particular chemical found in the human body such as hemoglobin, the oxygen-carrying component of red blood cells. He or she may then proceed to analyze the hemoglobin using methods that would pertain to the areas of physical or analytical chemistry. Many chemists specialize in areas that are combinations of the main disciplines, such as bioinorganic chemistry or physical organic chemistry.

Chemists at work

The American Chemical Society (ACS) has designed a series of videos illustrating the different fields that a chemist could pursue. Please watch this 2 minute and 23-second video and answer the questions below:

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1.1: What is Chemistry? - Chemistry LibreTexts

New York, NY, Oct. 13, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) will spotlight the roles that chemical engineers play in addressing societal and industrial challenges when the organizations 2020 Annual Meeting is held as a virtual event, November 1620.

Originally scheduled to take place in San Francisco, California, the conference is the largest AIChE meeting to date to be held virtually. Thousands of chemical engineering researchers, practitioners, entrepreneurs, and innovators from around the world will gather for the online conference, where they will engage with a program highlighting the professions latest developments and the myriad opportunities to apply chemical engineering expertise to help solve problems in energy, manufacturing, health care, and resource sustainability to name some of the topics on the agenda.

In addition to exploring growth areas in chemical engineering research and application, the Virtual Annual Meeting features new topical conferences that underline the imperative for workforce equity and inclusion across industry, academia, and all of societys enterprises. New topical conferences address the Evolving Role of Gender Dynamics, as well as Engineering for Inclusion. With global challenges necessitating a diverse workforce equipped with new skills, a Bridging the Skills Gap in Chemical Engineering track will offer skills training and highlight the value that diverse perspectives bring to projects and organizations of all kinds.

In the technical realm, a new conference will look at the challenges surrounding waste plastics. Additional program sessions amplify the Annual Meetings recent emphasis on the role of chemical engineers as innovators. These include conferences on Chemical Engineers in Medicine, Microbes at Biomedical Interfaces and Entrepreneurship in Chemical Engineering. The Synthetic and Renewable Fuels track explores the role of hydrogen in biofuels, while the Applications of Data Science to Molecules and Materials conference highlights advances at the nexus of data science and chemical engineering. The Next-Gen Manufacturing conference incorporates topics such as Industry 4.0, smart manufacturing, and cybersecurity.

At the associated Virtual Annual Student Conference (November 1316), chemical engineering undergraduates worldwide will take part in online career workshops, scholarly competitions, and networking events. Highlights include a welcome keynote address by Udit Batra, Chief Executive Officer of Waters Corporation; a research poster session; a recruitment fair; and the 22nd running of AIChEs signature Chem-E-Car Competition. Also, at the Virtual K-12 STEM Showcase, chemical engineering undergraduates and professionals will exhibit chemical engineering principles to an online audience.

With its emphasis on technical innovation and the professional growth of chemical engineers, AIChEs Annual Meeting is the foremost educational forum for chemical engineers working in research and development. Organizers expect more than 5,000 professional engineers, scientists, and business leaders to attend the meeting to acquire insight into developments in the fields growth areas and to connect with other professionals. The online platform is anticipated to extend participation to new audiences.

FEATURED LECTURES AND SPECIAL EVENTS

Meet the Leaders: Engineering for Inclusion (Monday, November 16). Inclusive workplaces are prerequisites for competing in a globalized world. Panelists at this plenary session will present success stories and unmet needs in the efforts to achieve equity in the workforce. Participants include Christine S. Grant (North Carolina State University), Jennifer Lopez-Reed (Eli Lilly), Gary S. May (University of California, Davis), and Lori Ryerkerk (Celanese).

The P. V. Danckwerts Lecture (November 16) will be presented by Massimo Morbidelli, Professor and Dean at the Polytechnic University of Milan and Emeritus Professor at ETH Zurich, who will discuss digitalization in the manufacturing of biopharmaceuticals. The lecture is co-sponsored by AIChE, Elsevier, the Institute of Chemical Engineers (IChemE), and the European Federation of Chemical Engineering (EFCE).

The Andreas Acrivos Award for Professional Progress in Chemical Engineering Lecture (Tuesday, November 17) will be given by AIChEs 2019 Acrivos Award recipient, Michael S. Strano, Carbon P. Dubbs Professor of Chemical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Stranos lecture is entitled Two Sides of the Same Leaf: Fluids Under Extreme Confinement and the Nanotechnology of Living Plants.

The James E. Bailey Award Lecture (November 17) is sponsored by AIChEs Society for Biological Engineering, and recognizes contributions in biological engineering. The 2020 lecturer is Cato T. Laurencin, University Professor and Van Dusen Distinguished Endowed Professor, and Chief Executive Officer of the Connecticut Convergence Institute for Translation in Regenerative Engineering at the University of Connecticut. A pioneer in regenerative engineering, Laurencin will describe the status and future prospects of tissue engineering.

The John M. Prausnitz AIChE Institute Lecture (Wednesday, November 18) will be delivered by Michael F. Doherty, the Duncan and Suzanne Mellichamp Chair in Process Systems Engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara. AIChEs 72nd Institute Lecturer, Doherty will discuss innovation at the frontiers of chemical engineering practice and science.

The Presidential Lecture (November 18) will be delivered by Frances H. Arnold, the Linus Pauling Professor of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering and Biochemistry at the California Institute of Technology. In her talk, Engineering by Evolution: Bringing New Chemistry to Life, Arnold the 2018 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry will discuss her work in creating new enzyme catalysts and expanding the chemistry of life to include reactions that nature may not have explored.

The William R. Schowalter Lecture (Thursday, November 19) is named in honor of Schowalter, a pioneer in fluid mechanics. The lecture will be given Alice P. Gast, President of University College London, who will discuss Schowalters legacy in her talk On the Shoulders of Giants: Lessons in Leadership and Collaboration from Bill Schowalter.

The IACChE James Y. Oldshue Lecture (November 19) will be presented by Arturo Hernndez-Maldonado, Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagez. He will discuss advances in the design of porous materials for the adsorption of water contaminants. The Oldshue lecture is presented in alternate years by AIChE and the Inter-American Confederation of Chemical Engineering (IACChE).

For information about virtual conference registration and a schedule of events, visit http://www.aiche.org/annual.

# # #

About AIChE

AIChE is a professional society of more than 60,000 chemical engineers in 110 countries. Its members work in corporations, universities, and government using their knowledge of chemical processes to develop safe and useful products for the benefit of society. Through its varied programs, AIChE continues to be a focal point for information exchange on the frontiers of chemical engineering research in such areas as energy, sustainability, biological and environmental engineering, nanotechnology, and chemical plant safety and security. More information about AIChE is available at http://www.aiche.org.

# # #

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Global Chemical Engineering Community Will Gather Online for Conference Offering an Expansive Technical Program and Prominent Lecturers, Nov. 1620 -...

Luis Echegoyen, Ph.D., professor of chemistry and biochemistry at The University of Texas at El Paso, has been appointed by the United States-Mexico Foundation for Science (USMFS) as a member of its Board of Governors.

The binational board consists of 12 recognized leaders from academia, business and government who direct and supervise the foundations activities. Echegoyens four-year term, which can be renewed once, begins Jan. 1, 2021.

The United States-Mexico Foundation for Science has made an excellent choice in selecting Dr. Echegoyen, said Robert Kirken, Ph.D., dean of UTEPs College of Engineering. He has had an extensive and distinguished career as a chemist, but also as a leader. His vision and working experience with scientists and engineers will undoubtedly have an immediate and lasting positive impact that will benefit both countries.

The USMFS is a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization created along with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1992 with support from organizations in the U.S. and Mexico. Its mission is to design, promote and articulate high-impact programs that promote the development of value ecosystems for regions and sectors of mutual interest through collaboration in science and technology for economic and social development based on innovation.

Currently, USMFS works with companies in diverse sectors such as agri-food, aerospace, auto parts manufacturing and health, among others. The organization has served over 5,000 companies, 1,000 entrepreneurs and 1,300 small producers in Mexico. It has collaborated with more than 200 universities, institutes and organizations promoting economic development in both countries and has allocated more than $100 million of public and private resources through its programs.

Echegoyen was selected for his essential role in establishing new funding programs and research centers at the National Science Foundation, his impressive career in academic research and teaching, as well as his experience living and working in a robust border community, said Jessica Lillie, U.S. executive director of USMFS.

Throughout his career, he has published numerous research articles and book chapters and earned many prestigious research awards. He was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Chemical Society (ACS), the worlds largest scientific organization, where he was selected as the first recipient of the ACS Award for Recognizing Underrepresented Minorities in Chemistry for Excellence in Research & Development in 2011. In 2018 he was elected president of the ACS for a three-year term.

I will try to enhance the connections between Mexico and the United States in matters of science and technology, Echegoyen said.

Establishing potential student exchanges in both dimensions, as well as of faculty, would be some of my highest priorities, as well as establishing true scientific collaborations between science and engineering groups. An ultimate goal would be to identify opportunities, especially at the border, for innovation and investments that benefit the two sides in a meaningful and impactful manner.

Echegoyen has served as the Robert A. Welch Chair Professor of Chemistry at UTEP since 2010. He was the director of the chemistry division at the National Science Foundation from 2006 to 2010.

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UTEP Professor joins United States-Mexico Foundation for Science Board of Governors - El Paso Herald-Post

The 2020-21 NBA season is almost upon us, but Hot Take SZN is here, and at the end of another eventful offseason we will see how close to the sun we can fly and still stand the swelter of these viewpoints.

There is a single path to championship contention for the Brooklyn Nets: Kevin Durant, who has not played a game since rupturing his right Achilles tendon in Game 5 of the 2019 NBA Finals, plays to his peak form.

But there is an equally dominant force standing in Brooklyns way: chemistry. Mark my words, the Nets will be the Los Angeles Clippers of this season, a contender turned pretender by way of internal combustion.

Kyrie Irving has a doctorate in destruction of locker rooms. Over the past four years, he has given the silent treatment to Cleveland Cavaliers teammates, excoriated veterans and rising stars alike before reneging on a promise to re-sign with the Boston Celtics and thrown a number of his current teammates under the bus.

Its glaring, in terms of some of the pieces that we need in order to be successful at the next level, Irving said in January, two weeks before his season-ending shoulder surgery. Im going to continue to reiterate it. Were doing the best we can with the guys we have in the locker room now, and well worry about the other stuff, in terms of moving pieces and everything else, as an organization down the line in the summer. ...

Collectively, I feel like we have great pieces, he added, but its pretty glaring we need one more piece or two more pieces that will complement myself, KD, DJ, GT, Spence, Caris, and well see how that evolves.

That list of Irvings perceived Nets core Durant, DeAndre Jordan, Garrett Temple, Spencer Dinwiddie and Caris LeVert left out rotational mainstays Joe Harris, Taurean Prince and Jarrett Allen. Absentmindedness or not, Irvings larger point lingers. Brooklyn returned everyone from that core, save for Temple, the beloved teammate whose 28 minutes a night on the wing will be replaced by incoming ex-Clipper Landry Shamet.

Story continues

That cannot be the solution to what Irving described as a glaring absence of a piece or pieces to a title contender. Perhaps that is why Durant has reportedly discussed with James Harden the possibility of the Nets trading a package of his teammates and draft picks for the frustrated Houston Rockets superstar.

Durant denied that report, but this is indicative of the media circus that follows him and Irving, fair or unfair. They both have a history of fostering dysfunction behind the scenes, only to chastise the media for shedding light on that dysfunction. Case in point: Following a speculative videotaped discussion of free agency at 2019 All-Star Weekend, Durant later conceded that it was not the bulls--- Irving claimed it was.

I am not of the belief that two superstars who feed into the NBAs histrionics with their own disdain for it will cancel each other out in a chemistry experiment set in the leagues largest media market, regardless of how close their friendship is. The fun has already begun, with Irving opting out of his first media availability this season, leaving his teammates to answer for him. And the drama in Brooklyn may not be limited to them.

The Nets also signed Jordan, the 32-year-old former All-Star center, to a hefty four-year, $40 million contract in the 2019 offseason, seemingly as part of the recruitment effort to land his friends Durant and Irving. It was a strange move personnel-wise, considering Brooklyn already had Allen a solid 22-year-old rim protector on his rookie contract. Their battle for minutes could create some friction between the younger guard who led the Nets to the playoffs the last two years and the veteran stars taking over.

Same goes for LeVert and Dinwiddie. The former has been a primary option in the playoffs the past two years, using more than a quarter of Brooklyns possessions, mostly as a pick-and-roll creator. His role will be severely diminished alongside two ball-dominant superstars, and his 31.6% mark on catch-and-shoot 3-pointers last season raises questions about how much value he brings as a tertiary option.

LeVert is just beginning a three-year, $52 million extension, but Dinwiddie another playmaker who is used to having the ball in his hands is entering a contract year. Based on his attempts to transform his current deal into a publicly traded financial commodity, it is safe to assume Dinwiddie wants to maximize his next contract. He, too, will be handed a diminished role as a 27-year-old about to enter his prime earning years.

It is not unlike the natural friction Boston faced after Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown led the Celtics to the 2018 Eastern Conference finals, only to cede touches when Irving and Gordon Hayward returned from injury the following year. It happens all the time, most recently with the Clippers, who added Kawhi Leonard and Paul George to a roster that had an established identity as a more communal playoff team on the rise.

Now ask yourself: Are Durant and Irving the superstars you expect to bridge inherent chemistry divides?

Ben Rohrbach is a staff writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at rohrbach_ben@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @brohrbach.

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Hot Takes We Might Actually Believe: Brooklyn Nets will be a chemistry disaster - Yahoo Sports

Chinese chemists have hatched yolk-shell nanostructures that they say are the first to integrate different metals as single atom catalysts to achieve a tandem synthesis. Our design concept is an important step to simulating enzyme catalysis or activation of inert chemical bonds, says Yuen Wu from the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei.

In the nanostructures inner yolk layer, Wu and colleagues embed single palladium atoms on a metal organic framework (MOF). In its outer layer, they embed iron in a nitrogen-doped carbon shell. Under electrolysis, the catalysts couple alkenes and nitroaromatic compounds, after iron atoms and oxygen epoxidise the former and palladium atoms and hydrogen reduce the latter. They have developed eight catalysts, the main one having an equal ratio of iron to palladium.

Wus team was inspired by photosynthesis and other biological systems where enzymes often simultaneously perform oxidation and reduction reactions at different sites. To simulate this, the researchers wanted to use single atom catalysts, where tiny amounts of often expensive metals enable reactions surprisingly well. Using seemingly incompatible oxidation and reduction reactions in one system seemed a great challenge, Wu adds. The idea of the yolk-shell design emerged initially because Wus PhD student Yafei Zhao was looking for a safer way to do reactions with both oxygen and hydrogen gas.

Together, the chemists first encapsulated palladium chloride in a MOF, then coated the MOF with silica. They coated the silica with a polymer containing irontitanium complexes, and pyrolysed the nanosystem at 700C to break the metals down to single atoms. Finally, they etched away the silica coating with base to give the yolk-shell structure.

Wus team put the catalysts into an electrolytic system that generated hydrogen and oxygen by splitting water, which reduced nitrobenzene and epoxidised styrene. They made the 1-phenyl-2-(phenylamino)ethanol product with 83% chemoselectivity and 91% yield. The researchers also showed the catalyst worked with various nitrobenzenes and cyclohexenes. If we can further improve the catalytic selectivity through synthesis conditions or equipment, its industrialisation prospects are very bright, says Wu.

Abhaya Datye at the University of New Mexico, US, is impressed that Wus team managed to place single atoms of palladium and iron in close proximity in a porous structure. It allows remarkable selectivity for a tandem reaction, Datye says. Broader application of this concept, and simpler synthetic protocols, may help in achieving widespread impact of this finding, he adds.

Original post:
Single atom catalysts double up to link oxidation and reduction - Chemistry World

Global and United States Waterproofing Chemical Market Research Report 2020-2026 provides a comprehensive assessment of the Waterproofing Chemical Market for the forecast from 2020 to 2026, as well as market values for the years 2018 and 2019. The investigatory report provides a close analysis of the impact of COVID-19 on numerous segments within the Waterproofing Chemical market supported product kind, application, and end-use across various countries round the world. Further, the report additionally provides insights into market developments, trends, provide and demand changes across numerous regions across the world. Thereby, the report provides a holistic read on the Waterproofing Chemical Market so as to assist call manufacturers with numerous strategic insights and future outlook. The Waterproofing Chemical market is predicted to witness continuing growth throughout the forecast from 2020 to 2026.

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BitumenElastomersPolyvinyl ChlorideTPOEPDM

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Roofing & WallsFloors & BasementsWaste & Water ManagementTunnel LinersOthers

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North America U.S. Canada Europe UK Germany France Rest of Europe Asia Pacific China Japan India Rest of Asia Pacific Rest of the World Latin America Middle East and Africa

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We area unit incessantly watching the market developments and changes occurring as an on the spot or indirect impact of the continued COVID-19 pandemic. Thereby, we have a tendency to area unit during a position to supply info on the market values and trends for each pre-COVID-19 and post-COVID-19 situations.

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Global and United States Waterproofing Chemical Market 2020 Recovering From Covid-19 Outbreak | Know About Leading Manufacturers by Drizoro S.A.U.,...

LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The automotive belt tensioner pulleys market is poised to grow by $ 746.25 mn during 2020-2024, progressing at a CAGR of about 2% during the forecast period.

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The report on the automotive belt tensioner pulleys market provides a holistic update, market size and forecast, trends, growth drivers, and challenges, as well as vendor analysis.

The report offers an up-to-date analysis regarding the current global market scenario, the latest trends and drivers, and the overall market environment. The market is driven by a production shift to low-cost countries.

The automotive belt tensioner pulleys market analysis includes application segment and geography landscape. This study identifies the increasing use of thermally-stable materials for producing timing belts as one of the prime reasons driving the automotive belt tensioner pulleys market growth during the next few years.

This report presents a detailed picture of the market by the way of study, synthesis, and summation of data from multiple sources by an analysis of key parameters.

The automotive belt tensioner pulleys market covers the following areas:

Automotive Belt Tensioner Pulleys Market Sizing

Automotive Belt Tensioner Pulleys Market Forecast

Automotive Belt Tensioner Pulleys Market Analysis

Companies Mentioned

Related Reports on Consumer Discretionary Include:

Key Topics Covered:

Executive Summary

Market Landscape

Market Sizing

Five Forces Analysis

Market Segmentation by Application

Customer Landscape

Geographic Landscape

Vendor Landscape

Vendor Analysis

Appendix

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Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focuses on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavios report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavios comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

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Automotive Belt Tensioner Pulleys Market 2020-2024- Featuring AB SKF, Bando Chemical Industries Ltd., Continental AG, Among Others to Contribute to...

By Kendall Rooker

For ASUs new offensive coordinator, Zak Hill, starting the seven-game season on November 7 is a relief.

It is good to be back out at practice and have a future goal, he says. You can feel the energy. Its exciting knowing well get to play. It was frustrating seeing other teams play. Now, for us, we got to stay focused on day to day. It is a daily process.

The offense is clicking in its first few weeks of practice, thanks to the Sun Devils getting in a few spring practices before the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

Hill and Prentice Gill, the assistant recruiting coordinator and wide receiver coach, agree the spring sessions helped young players get a preview of the offense.

The spring practices helped a lot. It helps Jayden, Gill says about quarterback Jayden Daniels.

We need elite QB play as organizing moving pieces around, when 5 (Daniels number) is used to it. When our guys get lost out there, Jayden can move pieces around and help them. If we didnt have it, it would be hard to function right now.

The receiving core for the Sun Devils has improved; it added the freshman pieces it would like to use this season to add depth. Not only are they adding depth, one of the captains is graduate student Frank Darby, who is returning this season. Hes helping incoming freshmen play at the collegiate level.

Frank leads by example, Gill says.

He is an older guy who cares about the positive direction of the team. He is constantly watching other guys and trying to correct different things. It holds him to a high standard. He is getting better himself, and I keep pushing him to not only being a captain but to be our No. 1 guy.

Incoming freshmen include wide receivers Johnny Wilson and LV Bunkley-Shelton.

Johnny and LV are people we need for depth and the playmaking ability; theyre what we needed to push this group. Theyre dynamic in their own ways, Gill says.

The Sun Devils plan to use Wilson in the slot position. At 6-foot-7, 220 pounds, Wilson will create great matchups, Gill says.

When Daniels returned to practice in early October, he worked on offense and his relationships with Hill and head coach Herm Edwards. Daniels showed off changes he made during the quarantine.

It helped me when COVID did hit to go back home and put on some more weight and come back out here to get bigger, put on some more weight and get more muscle mass to take more hits, he says.

Daniels relationship with Edwards is 100% real, Hill says. Hes witnessed them walking to practice and chatting in the coachs office.

As for Hill, Daniels and his new offensive coordinator have chemistry.

It is exciting going to someone (like Hill) to talk to him about what he wants to do, Daniels says. I feel like now I know the offense, know the details of everything I want to do and I built a relationship with coach Hill.

Daniels is confident in knowing the offense and in his receiving corps led by Darby and the supporting cast around him.

We knew, coming into the season, Frank was taking the leadership role, and we got a good supporting class around him that are receivers who are hungry and playing to win, Daniels says.

Although Daniels is happy to be preparing for the season, it was rough for him to adapt to playing in November and starting camp in October. It is a different offseason from usual; usually camp would start in August.

It has been difficult. By now were in season, he says.

I would rather be in camp right now and getting ready to play than not playing this whole fall and watching people on TV play. It has been hard, the transition to wanting to play and keeping the focus and angles we have.

The Sun Devils are set to start their 2020 season at USC at 10 a.m. Saturday, November 7.

They will play six other games for their full season, and the Pac-12 championship will be December 18.

The games will be played without fans until January, when the Pac-12 revisits it. CT

Read more:
All About Chemistry: ASU's Offense is Clicking and Ready for the Shortened Season - College Times

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The "Furan Resins Market - Global Industry Perspective, Comprehensive Analysis and Forecast, 2020 - 2026" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

Furan is a colorless and flammable compound. It is derived from furfural alcohol. It is highly soluble in solvents. Furan resins are primarily obtained from food constituents such as corncobs, sugar bagasse and renewable resources. Furan resins are toxic in nature though they are highly preferred due to its eco-friendly attribute compared to conventional resins that emits VOC contents. It has wide applications such as paints and plastics, gas hardening, foundry, polyols, solvents and amongst others.

The global furan resins market is primarily driven by increasing demand among consumers for bio-based end- products. Secondly, growing environmental awareness and stringent rules and regulation imposed by regulatory bodies are expected to trigger the demand for furan resins over the coming years. However, safety issues related to transportation is likely to impede the growth of the global furan resins market. Nonetheless, ongoing research and development activities are likely to open new doors for the major manufacturers of furan resins market in near future years.

In order to give the users of this report a comprehensive view on the furan resins market, we have included a detailed value chain analysis. To understand the competitive landscape in the market, an analysis of Porter's Five Forces model for the furan resins market has also been included. The study encompasses a market attractiveness analysis, wherein application segments are benchmarked based on their market size, growth rate, and general attractiveness.

The global furan resins market is segmented on the basis of applications and region. Based on application segment, the global furan resins market is bifurcated into automotive, foundry, plastic & paints, solvents, and others applications. Among all, automotive governs the market share. Moreover, foundry and plastic & paints are the other important applications that are expected to have the positive impact on the market size within the forecast period.

The report also provides the compounded annual growth rate (% CAGR) for the forecast period 2016 to 2021. Furthermore, the report provides the market size and forecasts in terms of both volumes (kilo tons) and revenue (USD million) for the period 2016 to 2021. The report also encompasses the regional segmentation. Regional segmentation covers the regions as well as country level analysis.

Key Topics Covered:

1. Preface

2. Executive Summary

2.1. Furan Resins Market, 2016 - 2026, (USD Billion)

2.2. Furan Resins Market: Snapshot

3. Global Furan Resins Market - Industry Analysis

3.1. Furan Resins Market: Market Dynamics

3.2. Market Drivers

3.2.1. Increasing demand among consumers for bio-based end products

3.2.2. Growing environmental awareness and stringent rules and regulation imposed by regulatory bodies

3.3. Restraints

3.3.1. Safety issues related to transportation

3.4. Opportunity

3.4.1. Ongoing research and development activities

3.5. Porter's Five Forces Analysis

3.6. Market Attractiveness Analysis

3.6.1. Market attractiveness analysis by Application segment

3.6.2. Market attractiveness analysis by regional segment

4. Global Furan Resins Market - Competitive Landscape

4.1. Company market share analysis

4.1.1. Global Furan Resins market: company market share analysis, 2019

4.2. Strategic development

4.2.1. Acquisitions & mergers

4.2.2. New Furan Resins Type launches

4.2.3. Agreements, partnerships, collaborations and joint ventures

4.2.4. Research and development and regional expansion

5. Global Furan Resins Market - Application Segment Analysis

5.1. Global Furan Resins market overview: by Application

5.1.1. Global Furan Resins market revenue share, by Application, 2019 and 2026

5.2. Automotive

5.2.1. Global Furan Resins market by Automotive, 2016-2026 (USD Billion)

5.3. Foundry

5.3.1. Global Furan Resins market by Foundry, 2016-2026 (USD Billion)

5.4. Plastic & Paints

5.4.1. Global Furan Resins market by Plastic & Paints, 2016-2026 (USD Billion)

5.5. Solvents

5.5.1. Global Furan Resins market by Solvents, 2016-2026 (USD Billion)

5.6. Others

5.6.1. Global Furan Resins market by Others, 2016-2026 (USD Billion)

6. Global Furan Resins Market - Regional Analysis

6.1. Global Furan Resins market overview: by region

6.2. North America

6.3. Europe

6.4. Asia Pacific

6.5. Latin America

6.6. Middle East & Africa

7. Company Profiles

7.1. Hongye Chemical Co. Ltd.

7.2. Dyna Chem Inc

7.3. Ideal Chemical

7.4. Supply Company

7.5. Continental Industries Group Inc

7.6. International process plants

7.7. Nova Molecular technologies

7.8. The Chemical Company

7.9. SolvChem Inc.

7.10. Novasynorganics

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/itv28w

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Insights on the Furan Resins Global Market to 2026 - Featuring Hongye Chemical, Dyna Chem & Idea Chemical Among Others - ResearchAndMarkets.com -...

MIT chemists have determined the molecular structure of a protein found in the SARS-CoV-2 virus. This protein, called the envelope protein E, forms a cation-selective channel and plays a key role in the viruss ability to replicate itself and stimulate the host cells inflammation response.

If researchers could devise ways to block this channel, they may be able to reduce the pathogenicity of the virus and interfere with viral replication, says Mei Hong, an MIT professor of chemistry. In this study, the researchers investigated the binding sites of two drugs that block the channel, but these drugs bind only weakly, so they would not be effective inhibitors of the E protein.

Our findings could be useful for medicinal chemists to design alternative small molecules that target this channel with high affinity, says Hong, who is the senior author of the new study.

MIT graduate student Venkata Mandala is the lead author of the paper, which appears in Nature Structural and Molecular Biology. Other authors include MIT postdoc Matthew McKay, MIT graduate students Alexander Shcherbakov and Aurelio Dregni, and Antonios Kolocouris, a professor of pharmaceutical chemistry at the University of Athens.

Structural challenges

Hongs lab specializes in studying the structures of proteins that are embedded in cell membranes, which are often challenging to analyze because of the disorder of the lipid membrane. Using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, she has previously developed several techniques that allow her to obtain accurate atomic-level structural information about these membrane-embedded proteins.

When the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak began earlier this year, Hong and her students decided to focus their efforts on one of the novel coronavirus proteins. She narrowed in on the E protein partly because it is similar to an influenza protein called the M2 proton channel, which she has previously studied. Both viral proteins are made of bundles of several helical proteins.

We determined the influenza B M2 structure after about 1.5 years of hard work, which taught us how to clone, express, and purify a virus membrane protein from scratch, and what NMR experimental strategies to take to solve the structure of a homo-oligomeric helical bundle, Hong says. That experience turned out to be the perfect training ground for studying SARS-CoV-2 E.

The researchers were able to clone and purify the E protein in two and half months. To determine its structure, the researchers embedded it into a lipid bilayer, similar to a cell membrane, and then analyzed it with NMR, which uses the magnetic properties of atomic nuclei to reveal the structures of the molecules containing those nuclei. They measured the NMR spectra for two months, nonstop, on the highest-field NMR instrument at MIT, a 900-megahertz spectrometer, as well as on 800- and 600-megahertz spectrometers.

Hong and her colleagues found that the part of the E protein that is embedded in the lipid bilayer, known as the transmembrane domain, assembles into a bundle of five helices. The helices remain largely immobile within this bundle, creating a tight channel that is much more constricted than the influenza M2 channel.

Interestingly, the SARS-CoV-2 E protein looks nothing like the ion channel proteins of influenza and HIV-1 viruses. In flu viruses, the equivalent M2 protein is much more mobile, while in HIV-1, the equivalent Vpu protein has a much shorter transmembrane helix and a wider pore. How these distinct structural features of E affect its functions in the SARS-CoV-2 virus lifecycle is one of the topics that Hong and her colleagues will study in the future.

The researchers also identified several amino acids at one end of the channel that may attract positively charged ions such as calcium into the channel. They believe that the structure they report in this paper is the closed state of the channel, and they now hope to determine the structure of the open state, which should shed light on how the channel opens and closes.

This paper represents a clear step forward, reporting the first high-resolution structure of a channel domain formed by any member of the coronavirus envelope protein family, and opens the way to rationally design compounds to block envelope protein channel activity, says Jaume Torres, an associate professor of biological sciences at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, who was not involved in the research.

Fundamental research

The researchers also found that two drugs amantadine, used to treat influenza, and hexamethylene amiloride, used to treat high blood pressure can block the entrance of the E channel. However, these drugs only bind weakly to the E protein. If stronger inhibitors could be developed, they could be potential drug candidates to treat Covid-19, Hong says.

The study demonstrates that basic scientific research can make important contributions toward solving medical problems, she adds.

Even when the pandemic is over, it is important that our society recognizes and remembers that fundamental scientific research into virus proteins or bacterial proteins must continue vigorously, so we canpreemptpandemics, Hong says. The human cost and economic cost of not doing so are just too high.

The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the MIT School of Science Sloan Fund.

Original post:
Chemists discover the structure of a key coronavirus protein - MIT News

I was speaking to a university audience the other day (over Zoom, of course) and as I often do I mentioned the studies that have looked at what kinds of reactions medicinal chemists actually use. The clich is that we spend most of our time doing things like metal-catalyzed couplings and amide formation, and well, theres a reason that got to be such a clich, because theres a lot of truth in that.

At the same time, theres some evidence that innovative drug molecules come with innovative structures, more often than youd expect by chance. Its for sure that some of the hottest research areas right now (such as bifunctional protein degraders) can produce some rather off-the-beaten-track structures. So how do we reconcile these? Can we be making innovative drugs using a bunch of boring reactions?

This new paper (open access) says that yes, we sure can. The authors (from AstraZeneca) first note that about a third of all the reactions in AZs electronic notebooks are amide couplings, which sounds about right. They assembled two random sets of 10,000 compounds that had been made and screened in at least two assays, with one of them featuring amide formation and the other with it specifically excluded. These sets (Amide Formation and Other Reactions) were then evaluated by various techniques to roughly measure structural complexity, diversity, and novelty, and in addition the targets that they had hit in past AZ screens were examined.

And as it happens, the Amide Formation set had similar, but slightly higher complexity than the Other Reactions set. The two sets were virtually identical in lipophilicity and percent of saturated carbon atoms, but the amide group was slightly higher in molecular weight and the the number of chiral centers. As for molecular diversity, two different measurements broadly agreed: the Other Reactions set covered more diversity space, but the two sets also had significant non-overlapping regions. That is, the Amide Formation set was not just contained inside the larger diversity space carved out by the Other Reactions set, but had space all its own as well. And there was no real difference in novelty between the two sets, as measured by the number of structures that already occurred in databases such as ChEMBL. And when historical assay behavior was examined, the Amide Formation set had more active compounds in it, while the Other Reactions set covered a slightly wider range of assays themselves. But the two sets had a large overlap in the actual targets covered, so there was, in the end, not a significant difference between the two in target space.

The authors suggest that one reason that so simple a reaction as amide formation can hold its own (versus so many other possibilities) is that there are more and more unique amines available for such reactions. They looked through the ELNs for one-step amide couplings that made compounds for testing and examined the amines involved. On average, 8,000 different amines were used each year for such reactions, and every year about 2,000 of them were new. The authors:

In practice, building-block availability is one of the main determining factors. If the desired building blocks are unavailable, the chemist is faced with the decision whether to invest in new route development, or to make analogs with established routes, or to avoid making the target molecule at all. Given the uncertain nature of drug design, investing more time and resources in making a compound does not guarantee improved molecular quality.. .

. . .In medicinal chemistry, we have now reached a state where millions of building blocks have previously been engineered and can now be used in molecular design and synthesis. In addition to the increase in the number of new amines, boronic acids have been another fast-expanding reagent class since the introduction of the Suzuki coupling method

That really has been a change over my career. There are just so many more neat little functionalized compounds available now; its become an entire business of its own. As the paper notes, you even have setups such as Enamines REAL compound set, which is a virtual-but-easily-made collection via mixing and matching their available building blocks. That one would come out to well over a billion compounds if someone placed an order for the whole collection.

And if we can get our work done via such easy reactions plenty of experience in doing the reactions, relatively easy purifications, existing scaleup expertise, and so on then why shouldnt we? (I should note that the paper under discussion has a lot of good references to past arguments about this issue). That gets to another point I was emphasizing to my university audience: medicinal chemistry is a means to an end. The end, of course, is the discovery of useful drug molecules, and if the synthetic chemistry can (as much as possible) get out of the way of all the other tricky steps in that process, then so much the better.

Thats not to say that we shouldnt try new reactions or new technologies. Among other things, these can lead to even more new building blocks that can feed into the easy reactions themselves. And God knows, as you develop the SAR of a compound series you may find yourself unavoidably being pushed into difficult chemistry, where you will need all the help you can get and throwing amide couplings and Suzukis at the problem will avail you not. No, we definitely need our skills and our imaginations but we need them for the times we need them, and when we dont need them we should speed drug discovery along with the best tools we have for it. To paraphrase Einstein about physical theories, a synthetic route should be as simple as possible, but not any simpler. Getting as much done as you can with the easy methods leaves you more time to tackle the hard stuff. Get flashy only when you have to.

Go here to read the rest:
Are Medicinal Chemists Taking It Too Easy? | In the Pipeline - Science Magazine

I wish that I had known Roger Schmitz, the former dean of the Notre Dame chemistry department and later a vice-president and associate provost at the university.

He loved to run and was still winning his age group into his 70s even though he laughingly admitted he sometimes didnt have any opponents.

He threw snowballs at his three girls, the three Js Jan, Joy and Joni even when they were adults and coached them in softball, sometimes having to nudge them off the bench for their two-inning minimum in the field. He loved giving them nicknames.

He enjoyed a wide variety of music from Bobby Darins Mack the Knife to the English folk song Greensleeves, from Roger Millers King of the Road to the Notre Dame Fight Song, of course.

He collected 200 autographs of major league ballplayers when he was growing up in Carlyle, Ill. His collection included 22 Hall of Famers with names like Musial, DiMaggio and Robinson.

He died of ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) in October of 2013 while the World Series played soothingly by his bedside.

During his 78 years, Roger Schmitz knew how to live and love and then leave this world in both a courageous and dignified way.

I dont think I ever met anyone who didnt enjoy being around my father, says Jan Schmitz Mathew, Rogers oldest daughter. And he demonstrated the same incredible grace and presence when he was dying that he had shown throughout his life.

To honor her dad, Jan has written a book, Surrounded by Love: My Familys Journey Through ALS. It is available at corbybooks.com, Amazon and the Hammes Notre Dame Book Store.

It is about Rogers life with his wife, Ruth, and their three daughters and the battle they faced together against Lou Gehrigs disease that took him in just seven months.

When his diagnosis was confirmed, he wrote his daughters. Everything else has been ruled out. Thats a bummer but it doesnt surprise me There will be bumps ahead, but we can handle them as you know.

Yes, they knew. Their dad had never been about self-pity or bitterness. He accepted what he couldnt change and moved on just as he had during an earlier bout with bladder cancer.

But in not much more than a years time, Roger went from still being able to jog around the block to needing a walker and then a motorized wheelchair and finally a scooter he bonded with.

And he kept his quirky sense of humor, Jan says.

When he once banged his scooter into a doorway, Jan remembers him saying, Well &$$%, Roger. Do you think you could clobber the wall just one more time today?

He never built walls around himself, though. He never tried to push his family away and go it alone.

Love is costly, the Rev. Paul Doyle wrote in the foreword of Jans book. And when we love, we carry crosses with each other. On the day Roger died, his last words to his daughters Jan, Joy and Joni were I love my Js. They and his wife Ruth had carried this cross with him.

Surrounded by Love is the story of that sad yet sometimes sweet journey of this uncommon man.

Heres another story about the late great Chicago Bear star and Wakarusa resident Gale Sayers from reader Michael Myers:

Its 1995 or so, and my son Matthew and I are walking down the midway at the Elkhart County Fair and I see Gale Sayers, Michael recalls. He was by himself, nobody bothering him, so I decided to change that. We approached him and I apologized for bothering him.

He was very friendly and I told him I wanted my son, who played football, to meet the greatest Bears running back ever. He then said as he was shaking Matthews hand, Is Walter Payton here?

You gotta love a humble man like that.

Congrats to the whole town of Buchanan for garnering the top honor on Reader Digests list of The Nicest Places in America.

Yeah, Ive always thought Buchanan was pretty cool. A couple of my friends come from there even though they probably should have been kicked out of town.

The Redbud City earned the accolades because of its 150-year-old tradition of honoring our fallen veterans on Memorial Day a summer march for racial justice with police chief Tim Ganus joining in Red Bud Area Ministries, which helps so many of the less fortunate the Scarecrow Factory and the Buchanan Promise scholarship fund to name a few reasons.

Life is better here, is Buchanans motto, and its citizens seem to believe that. Buchanan is a very supportive community, says 27-year-old Megan Goodrich, who sets up donation boxes for the homeless, according to the article. If you have an idea and want to do something, theres bound to be people here who will try to help you figure out how to make it happen.

Buchanan obviously is a happening place and now Readers Digests nicest of nicest places, too.

I was trying to out-drive my wife on Studebaker Golf Courses seventh hole when a ball plunked down on the No. 9 green and rolled into the hole not 30 yards from us.

Then Tribune sports editor Mike Wanbaugh came whooping down the hill like a banshee. Our buddy Kirby Sprouls had just made a double eagle/hole-in- one on the 265-yard hole.

In the last year, Ive been in the vicinity of two of my buddies making aces at Studebaker. If you pay my way ha, ha (it costs only $6 for a senior to walk), Ill serve as your lucky charm.

But then Kirby had to come clean: OK, before anyone calls Sports Illustrated because it was a heckuva shot, if I say so myself it was a mulligan. My first tee shot was a little left and a little short. With no one behind us, I decided to hit a second tee shot. The rest is history. But if I dont come clean on the mulligan, I would owe Wanbaugh drinks from Hammer & Quill for the rest of my life.

Sadly, Wanbaugh is like that ha, ha. But as groundskeeper Carl Spackler (Bill Murray) said in Caddyshack, Its in the hole!

Continued here:
Chemistry professor had the right formula for how to live and die - South Bend Tribune

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons confirmed on Tuesday that the substance used to poison the Russian opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny had similar structural characteristics to the Novichok family of highly potent nerve agents.

The finding from the worlds leading chemical weapons body adds additional weight to the conclusions of laboratories in Germany, France and Sweden, and increases the likelihood that Russia, which has been accused of using a similar poison in at least one previous assassination attempt, will be punished, likely with targeted financial sanctions.

These results constitute a matter of grave concern, the organization said in a statement. The use of chemical weapons by anyone under any circumstances, it said, is reprehensible and wholly contrary to the legal norms established by the international community.

Mr. Navalny, the most prominent figure in Russias political opposition, fell ill on a flight from Siberia on Aug. 20 and slipped into a coma. The Russian authorities initially prevented his family from transporting him abroad for treatment, but he was eventually brought to Berlin, where he was treated at the Charit hospital. He was discharged on Sept. 23 and has vowed to return to Russia to continue his work after a period of rehabilitation in Germany.

The German authorities said they never doubted the conclusions of military scientists in Germany, who had reported discovering traces of Novichok in biological samples taken from Mr. Navalny, as well as on a plastic water bottle from his hotel that was smuggled out of Russia by his aides.

But the findings of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons add an authoritative and independent assessment that the Germans could use as ammunition in the pursuit of punishment, most likely in the form of financial sanctions against Russian officials.

By doing so, Germany would be following a playbook used in 2018, when the British government relied on the chemical weapons body to bolster its conclusions that Russian operatives had used a Novichok poison in an attempt to murder Sergei V. Skripal, a former Russian military intelligence officer who had spied for Britain. In that case, the organizations findings helped assure Britains allies and justify a mass expulsion of Russian officials in the weeks after the poisoning.

Steffen Seibert, the spokesman for the German government, said in a statement Tuesday that in the coming days the countries of the European Union together with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons would discuss next steps.

The German government renews its call on Russia to explain what has happened, Mr. Seibert said. Any use of chemical weapons is a serious process and cannot be without consequences.

Separately, forty-four signatories of the Chemical Weapons Convention, including the United States, Britain and every country of the European Union issued a joint statement on Tuesday calling on Russia to investigate the poisoning and cooperate with technical experts from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. We condemn in the strongest possible terms the use of a toxic chemical as a weapon in the Russian Federation on 20 August, the statement said.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2013 for its efforts to whittle away the worlds stocks of chemical weapons, but its record as the worlds watchdog for such weapons has become clouded in recent years.

In 2017, an official from the organization traveled to Moscow to certify that Russia had fulfilled its obligations as part of the Chemical Weapons Convention and destroyed its remaining declared stocks of chemical weapons.

Less than six months later, a pair of Russian operatives traveled to Britain, armed with a Novichok-class chemical weapon that had apparently been produced secretly, under the noses of weapons inspectors, according to the British government. The operatives used it to poison Mr. Skripal and his daughter, Yulia Skripal in Salisbury, in southern England. Three other people in Salisbury were also poisoned, and one of them, Dawn Sturgess, died.

Two years after that, it was used on Mr. Navalny.

Russian officials have denied involvement in both attacks. On Sept. 15, the head of Russias foreign intelligence service, Sergei Naryshkin, gave a rare news conference in which he said that all stocks of Novichok had been destroyed in accordance with the Chemical Weapons Convention.

To say that on the territory of Russia there is production or stocks of military-grade poisons is of course disinformation, Mr. Naryshkin said.

Western intelligence services say otherwise, though Mr. Naryshkins comment, even if inaccurate, was revealing a rare acknowledgment that Russia had, at least at one time, possessed stocks of Novichok. The nerve agent was developed in the Soviet Union and Russia in the 1980s and 90s and was so highly classified that before the Skripal attack it was not even listed as a banned substance under the Chemical Weapons Convention.

Before Mr. Naryshkins comment, Russian officials had denied that the Novichok program existed, though some of the Russian scientists involved in it had spoken about it publicly.

Despite Russian denials, a small group of Western countries have known about the Kremlins Novichok program for decades, including where the substance is produced and stored, said Andrew Weber, a senior fellow at the Council on Strategic Risks.

Western officials pressed their Russian counterparts on several occasions to cease production of the weapons, though for years the West resisted including the Novichok class on the Chemical Weapons Convention list of banned substances, Mr. Weber said.

The weapons were considered so dangerous that publicly acknowledging them was judged a proliferation risk, said Mr. Weber, who was an assistant secretary of defense for nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs during the Obama administration.

Russia never possessed large stockpiles of Novichok, but was able to produce small amounts on demand, he said. Even low quantities, he added, would be sufficient to kill thousands of people.

It was only after the Salisbury poisonings that Western officials accused the Russians publicly and successfully pushed to have three forms of Novichok nerve agent added to the list of banned substances, though not all of them.

The nerve agent used on Mr. Navalny, according to the German authorities, is a novel form of Novichok that until now was unknown to Western experts.

In an interview posted Monday on a popular Russian YouTube channel, Mr. Navalny struggled to explain what it felt like to be poisoned with Novichok, saying it was like nothing he had ever experienced.

Normally when youre not feeling well, you can assess yourself and figure out whats happening my heart hurts, my stomach hurts, my leg hurts, or Ive got a cold, he told the interviewer, Yuri Dud. But in this case you cant understand it.

He said it was something like being kissed by a dementor, the ghoulish soul-sucking monsters from the Harry Potter series.

It doesnt hurt, he said, but life escapes you.

See the original post:
Nerve Agent Was Used to Poison Navalny, Chemical Weapons Body Confirms - The New York Times

A one-pot method for converting polyethylenes into more valuable chemicals at low temperature has been demonstrated by researchers in the US. The early-stage research could potentially help tackle the Earths ever-growing mountain of waste plastic, and offers an alternative route to chemicals currently produced via energy-intensive processes that consume fossil fuels.

Plastics are a versatile class of materials with myriad applications, and today they are a ubiquitous and indispensable part of modern life. In 2015, global production of petroleum-based plastics was 380 million tonnes, and production is projected to double again within 20 years. However, their stability and chemical inertness also mean that they pose a significant waste problem because they can persist for hundreds of years when disposed of in landfill or in the environment. A 2017 study found that this was the fate of 79% of all plastic waste ever produced, with just 9% being recycled. Current industrial recycling methods typically involve simply washing the polymers before melting them down and reshaping them. However, these recycled plastics have inferior properties and lower value than virgin plastics. And while chemical recycling methods can, in principle, depolymerise some plastics to the monomer, this process is highly endothermic, posing a challenge for its economic viability.

Now, Susannah Scott of the University of California, Santa Barbara and colleagues have demonstrated the conversion of polyethylenes which represent 36% of all plastic waste to long chain alkylaromatic chemicals, which are more valuable than the original plastic. Alkylaromatics are currently produced mostly by reforming the crude oil fraction naphtha at 500600C to produce a mixture called BTX (benzene-toluene-xylenes), which is then alkylated in a next step that usesa strong acid catalyst, generating further environmental issues in separation and waste disposal. The teams new method involves direct conversion of polyethylenes to a mixture of linear alkylaromatics, using a platinum catalyst at a temperature of just 280C.

The group discovered its process by chance when attempting a different reaction. They were initially puzzled by their results because the low temperatures used shouldnt have been sufficient for aromatisation, which is highly endothermic. However, they realised that the hydrogen released by aromatisation was reacting with the polyethylene chains, promoting their breakdown into shorter chains. [Complete] depolymerisation would take polyethylene back to ethylene, and that reaction would be strongly endothermic, explains Scott. But were not going back to ethylene you can think about taking the large molecules and cleaving them with hydrogen to get alkanes, and thats an exothermic reaction. So coupling the reaction that produces the hydrogen with the reaction that consumes the hydrogen makes us nearly thermo-neutral.

The researchers demonstrated the process on a sample of low density polyethylene plastic bag and a high density polyethylene bottle cap, producing a range of linear alkylaromatics that could have uses ranging from surfactants and lubricants to refrigerants and insulating oils. They are working to develop a more scaleable, continuous process that can tolerate the mixed feed streams commonly found in real polymer waste. We have been working with mixtures and the process still works as long as the contaminants dont deactivate the catalyst, says Scott.

Its really exciting, says Charlotte Williams of the University of Oxford; Theyve identified a completely different product range [from cracking polyolefins] which definitely has a market and definitely have high value, and theyre able to make them with quite high selectivity in a reasonable temperature range. Its a long way from being a deployable system but they present really good data that gives people a frame of reference to understand whats going on and improve upon it.

In terms of the chemistry, being able to find that little window in the thermodymanics is not easy, says Yutan Getzler of Kenyon College in Ohio, I hope that they will do a follow up study in which the cost of getting realistic post-consumer material to a state in which their chemistry works would be seriously considered.

See original here:
Plastic waste upcycled to high-value chemicals in one-pot process - Chemistry World