Chemistry in Pictures: Solvents are for suckers

Okay, a lot of great chemistry happens in solvents. But as any synthetic chemist can tell you, getting products out of solution-phase reaction mixtures can be a lot of work and can generate a lot of waste. In mechanochemistry, solid-phase reagents are tumbled inside drums, usually alongside metal or ceramic balls. The kinetic energy of the collisions drives the reaction. Not only can mechanochemistry avoid waste, “This approach opens unique chemical pathways that are not accessible in conventional solution-based chemistry,” says Maciej Majdecki, a postdoc at the Polish Academy of Sciences’s Institute of Organic Chemistry. This photo shows the type of device Majdecki uses in his work, in this case the solvent-free mechanochemical oxidation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. He plants to modify the resulting quinones for use in novel optical electronic devices.