Category Archives: Chemistry

Whether its mocktails, alcohol-free beer or low-alcohol wines and spirits, theres no question that keeping people hangover-free is big business.

In the UK, the no- and low-alcohol beer market was worthmore than 350 million in 2021, and in China its a multibillion-pound industry. And although theres no such thing as truly no-alcohol beer alcohol-free labelled beers can contain up to 0.5% alcohol by volume(ABV) removing most of the booze is down to some basic chemistry.

An alcohol molecule has at least one hydroxyl (OH) functional group bound to a carbon atom. This means even something as complicated as cholesterol is still, technically, an alcohol. But, the drinks labels dont describe the chemical definition instead, they mean ethanol (CH3CH2OH).

Ethanol isnt just for drinking: it makes a terrific fuel and is an important industrial precursor to make other molecules too. It has a lot of different effects on the body far too many to go into here but the important part comes when you consume more than your liver can metabolise, and it interferes with neurotransmission in the brain. The result is that you get drunk. However, low-alcohol beer has so little alcohol that your body can usually deal with it easily, keeping you hangover-free.

Brewers follow the same process used for thousands of years to make beer. First, they mash malted barley in hot water. Then, they extract sugars in a liquid known as wort, boil it with hops and ferment the liquid. The fermentation process involves yeast a fungus that feeds on the sugars to produce ethanol, carbon dioxide and by-products that add flavour.

No yeast, no fungus creating ethanol, no flavour

There are multiple tactics a brewer can employ to ban the booze. One is to sidestep the fermentation process altogether by not adding yeast to the wort: no yeast, no fungus creating ethanol, but also no flavour. Unless you use additives to spice up the flavour, you get a rubbish-tasting beer. Another option is equally simple: just dilute your beer. By adding water, you reduce the ABV, but also make weak beer.

This leaves the modern process of dealcoholisation: removing the alcohol after fermentation. Again, there are a range of techniques that brewers can use, but most involve either heat or a membrane-based process.

One common approach is vacuum distillation. This involves heating the beer at low pressure, which means the ethanol and water in the beer evaporate at different temperatures and separate. Brewers take the ethanol out, and reblend the remaining liquid, this time with a little carbonic acid. The downside is that they lose various flavour molecules with the alcohol. Brewers must separate the liquid once more, then reintroduce the flavours into the now (nearly) alcohol-free beer. A variation on the technique is stripping, in which water vapour or a non-reactive gas (such as nitrogen) is passed through the wort under vacuum to carry away the ethanol. You can decaffeinate coffee beans using a similar technique.

Another alternative is reverse osmosis. Rather than low pressure, the brewer uses high pressure to force the beer through a semipermeable membrane. This membrane allows water and ethanol through but leaves larger molecules (such as those that give beer its taste) behind as a concentrate. Brewers can then dilute the concentrate with fresh water to make the booze. The downside is that, although most of the flavourful stuff is in the concentrate, they lose some smaller molecules or those dissolved in the beers gases. Without care and attention, the beer loses its flavour, smell, colour and even stability meaning that your alcohol-free beer isnt as good as the real thing.

Why not watch, and share, this TikTok over a brew?

Kit Chapman

Watch, and share, this TikTok (bit.ly/47KgGCn) over a brew

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How is alcohol-free beer made? | Everyday chemistry | RSC Education - Education in Chemistry

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Rhodamine-based flourescent dyes developed at HHMI's Janelia Research Campus.

Credit: Jonathan Grimm/HHMI Janelia Research Campus

WhenSenior Scientist Jonathan Grimm came to Janelia 13 years ago, he didnt know much about fluorescence or fluorescent dyes. But as an organic chemist who had been working in drug discovery at Merck, he certainly knew a thing or two about medicinal chemistry.

On a whim, Grimm and Janelia Senior Group Leader Luke Lavis decided to try using a mainstay medicinal chemistry reaction Grimm had picked up in the pharmaceutical industry to improve centuries-old dye chemistry. They thought this approach could allow access to completely new, previously inaccessible rhodamines molecules Lavis had been working to make brighter and longer-lasting so they could be used to better image cells under powerful microscopes.

The result was the start of what would become the now ubiquitous and indispensable Janelia Fluor dyes, bright, photostable, cell-permeable fluorescent probes that allow biologists to see the molecules inside cells. More than a decade after they were first unveiled, these fluorescent dyes that span the color spectrum have become a staple of biology labs worldwide.

Using a similar approach, Grimm, Lavis, and their collaborators have now released the culmination of their years of work: a comprehensive collection of additional rhodamine-based fluorescent dyes a whole new set of far-red shifted dyes that can penetrate deeper into tissue and are good for in vivo imaging, making them vitally important for biologists. The team also shared their approach -- the novel chemistry they developed to synthesize the dyes and insights that provide a roadmap for designing future probes.

Along the way we applied or modified or came up with totally new ways to make rhodamines that have pretty broad scope and that enabled us to make so many dyes relatively quickly, Grimm says. This is probably the most comprehensive work weve done with rhodamines so far.

Creating a comprehensive collection

The latest project started at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020. The team had just released research detailing the novel chemistry they used to expand the Janelia Fluor dye palette. Next, they wanted to see if they could apply what they learned about optimizing the Janelia Fluor dyes to other types of rhodamine-based dyes, while also further improving the chemistry used to synthesize them.

As the world shut down, Grimm and Lavis planned new chemistryincluding completely novel chemical reactionsthat sought to rationally incorporate the lessons learned from the Janelia Fluor dyes into other classic but suboptimal rhodamines. A few months later, Grimm got back into the lab and began seeing if their work on paper could translate to the real and sometimes unpredictable world of organic chemistry. With COVID precautions in place, Grimm worked alone in the lab optimizing the chemistry and creating the first new dyes.

It probably would have happened anyway, but for better or for worse, when there is nothing else to focus on, or the things to focus on were badas 2020 was for everybodychemistry was a nice distraction, Grimm says.

The new research lays out the culmination of the teams work over the past three-plus years. Unlike the traditional Janelia Fluor dyes, which are characterized by an appendage called an azetidine ring, the other rhodamine-based dyes have different substituents protruding from other parts of their molecular structures. Armed with knowledge from optimizing the JF dyes, the team modified these other areas on the older rhodamine dyes to alter their color, brightness, photostability, cell permeability, and other characteristics.

The result is a whole new set of rhodamine-based dyes for imaging. The team was also able to devise several new ways to make classic rhodamine dyes, enabling them to create dozens of functional versions relatively quickly.

We had known for a long time how changing the functionality on the top of the molecule affects the colors of the fluorophores, but we also figured out that this strongly affects the chemical properties of the dye, Lavis says. We exploited that in different ways to make bright, red-shifted imaging agents.

The final chapter

While this isnt the end of the story for rhodamine dyes, the work is likely moving in a different direction. Now the team is focused on designing reagents that are specifically tailored for use by their biologist collaborators, working to build the very best tools they can with the knowledge theyve gained.

We can make any rhodamine dye we would ever want with this chemistry, and so the big question is what do we make next, Lavis says. Its not what can we make but what should we make.

Grimm says developing this expansive set of rhodamines, which took over a decade, is a testament to HHMI Janelias support of long-term efforts that are beneficial to the wider scientific community. Having permanent staff scientist positions at Janelia also enables Grimm and other senior scientists to provide continuity to a large project like the Janelia Fluor dyes. Four of the researchers on the most current publication were also on the very first rhodamine dye paper the lab published, in 2011.

For Grimm, it also means he gets to do what he loves be in the lab, do chemistry, and create tools that are useful to biologists. And, more than 13 years later, hes also learned a thing or two about fluorescent dyes.

It is very satisfying to have this timeline of papers that show all that weve done over the years, and it all started with just one random reaction based on a little calculation that Luke did, which itself was enabled by a synthetic method that we just happened to pursue, on a whim, simply to make dye synthesis a little easier, Grimm says. Even if a calculation looks great, it doesnt always pan out that way. In this case, it was dead on, and it certainly paid off.

Journal of the American Chemical Society

Optimized Red-Absorbing Dyes for Imaging and Sensing

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From the left: the organizers of the competition Prof. Pavel Jungwirth (IOCB Prague) and Prof. Robert Hoyst (IChF PAS) and the winner of the 2023 Dream Chemistry Award Dr. Mark Levin (University of Chicago)

Credit: Photo: Tom Bello / IOCB Prague

The Dream Chemistry Award, a unique competition that does not count scientific articles in prestigious journals or affiliations with renowned universities, knows its winner for this year. Its contestants are young scientists within seven years of having received their doctorate. To be true to its name, it rewards ideas so novel that their realization is akin to fulfilling a bold human dream. The 2023 award has been given to Mark Levin from the University of Chicago, whose aim is to simplify the design of pharmaceutically active substances.

Co-organized by the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Czech Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences, the Dream Chemistry Award reaches out to researchers that are at the beginning of their careers and are trying to solve fundamental problems in chemistry or related fields. To achieve this goal, they propose innovative solutions to problems with a global impact. It is the general benefit that can come from these projects which is crucial for success in this competition.

This year, the challenge was tackled the best by Dr Mark Levin with his dream about the targeted editing of the skeletons of aromatic molecules. His vision is that molecular designers will be better able to synthesize new functional molecules directly, preferably avoiding dead ends. This would give the world substances with properties that are perfectly suited to specific roles, which is especially important for modern medicinal chemistry. The reason is that this field is currently facing a multitude of problems, for example concerning the effectiveness of medicines.

It is a real breakthrough that can fundamentally transform the way new molecules are discovered, even though this will require a collaborative effort from many research groups around the world, says Mark Levin, adding that It can revolutionize the science of synthesis.

Contestants are nominated for the competition by their reputable senior colleagues from scientific institutions around the world. Young researchers that accept the nomination and prepare a competition submission get evaluated by an international scientific committee. One of its members as well as organizer of the Czech branch of the competition, Prof.Pavel Jungwirth from IOCB Prague, describes: This year's Dream Chemistry Award event presented five scientifically strong finalists, and the jury and audience heard five great lectures. It is difficult to choose a winner from among such brilliant candidates, but this is what the jury is for.

I enjoyed all the lectures. They were of really high quality, agrees the representative of the Polish side, Prof.Robert Hoyst, adding: These people are exceptional, and it is a great honour to be part of such a competition. Although, come to think of it, for us this is not a mere competition; we are talking about the Dream Chemistry Award a festival of science.

Also visiting Prague this year are young recipients of the award from previous years: Karl Brozek, Jessica Kramer and Yujia Qing, who shone in the competition four years ago. Since then, the postdoctoral researcher and then youngest finalist has become an associate professor in organic chemistry at Oxford (UK) and leader of her own research group. How did her success in the Dream Chemistry Award help her? Yujia answers: Receiving this award in the field of chemical biology helped me start my own research programme. I was particularly inspired by the scientific discussion that accompanied the competition. I received a lot of feedback. I also really appreciate the support given by the Dream Chemistry Awards committee. A letter of recommendation from one of its members undoubtedly helped me land my current faculty position.

She is not giving up on her dream of sequencing all life, molecule by molecule, with which she impressed the evaluators in 2019, although she admits that she will have to take a different path than she originally envisaged. I will celebrate every step forward and stay open to all the surprises that science can bring to me, Yujia Qing looks to the future.

The main accolade, the Dream Chemistry Award, comes with an original glass statuette and a prize of 10,000. The remaining finalists have received the TOP5 Prize and a financial reward of 1,000. The top five include: Aisha Bismillah from the University of York in the UK (accelerating the development of shape-shifting molecules and their use in medicine), Moran Frenkel-Pinter from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (studying primordial peptides as mixtures to find connections between today's biochemistry and the chemical principles from prebiotic times that led to the origin of life on Earth), Francesca Grisoni from the Eindhoven University of Technology (revolutionizing the next generation of artificial intelligence based on principles of chemical intuition) and Barak Hirshberg from Tel Aviv University (designing molecular crystals with customized properties using machine learning algorithms).

The Dream Chemistry Award (www.dreamchemistryaward.org) was founded ten years ago by Prof.Robert Hoyst from the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw (IChF PAS). In 2017, the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Czech Academy of Sciences (IOCB Prague) joined as the second organizing institution, and since then the competition has been held annually, alternating between Prague and Warsaw.

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This year's winner of the Dream Chemistry Award competition is organic chemist Mark Levin with his vision for ... - EurekAlert

Barbara Wadsworth, center, presents a $2 million check representing a gift from the William Henry McMullen III Trust to Dr. Charles Karr, president of The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH). Also pictured are, left to right, Dr. David Puleo, UAH provost; D. Ashley Jones, a UAH alumnus serving on the Planned Giving Advisory Board; Dr. Bernhard Vogler, chair, Department of Chemistry; Dr. Rainer Steinwandt, dean, College of Science; Mallie Hale, vice president for university advancement, and Tammy Eskridge, senior planned giving officer. The portrait in the center is of William H. McMullen III, Mrs. Wadsworths father. Photo Credit: http://www.uah.edu

On Friday, theUniversity of Alabama in Huntsville(UAH) College of Science announced that it has received a $2 million gift from theWilliam Henry McMullen III Trustto fund three initiatives in the Department of Chemistry. Barbara Wadsworth, McMullens daughter, selected UAH for the donation to honor the memory of her father, an analytical chemist.

It was auspicious that we had come up with this at the same time that UAH had just started to develop the Ph.D. in chemistry, Wadsworth said. That was the deciding factor on my part because then it would make a difference.

The first of the three initiatives is the William Henry McMullen III Distinguished Graduate Fellowship. Its goal is to attract and retain exceptional chemistry students and internationally recognized chemistry researchers.

UAH PresidentDr. Charles Karrsaid that acquiring outstanding graduate students to invigorate and attract faculty members is essential in the initial phase of building the Ph.D. program.

Barbara Wadsworths remarkable generosity will allow us to jump-start an area of great need at UAH, namely an increase in the production of Ph.D. graduates, Karr said. As a consequence of this gift, the Department of Chemistry will be able to immediately recruit high-quality Ph.D. students for their program, something that will accelerate the development of the program. Being able to do this while honoring the incredible life of her father, William Henry McMullen III, is a blessing for all of us involved. We are extremely grateful and tremendously proud to be able to utilize this gift in order to advance our university and to benefit our community.

Dr.Rainer Steinwandtis the dean of the College of Science.

This generous way of honoring the legacy of William Henry McMullen III is transformative for our Department of Chemistry, Steinwandt said. Such impactful support enables us to strengthen our graduate program well beyond our traditional abilities, and it allows us to equip our faculty and students with the chemistry laboratories they need to excel.

The fellowship will be created with a $1 million endowment. The Department of Chemistry will nominate current and prospective UAH students for this award of $40,000 to cover their tuition, single coverage health insurance, and a stipend for the academic year.

The other two initiatives will support the laboratories that are vital to the work of these students and faculty members.

The William Henry McMullen III Laboratories Fund is an endowment of $750,000, which will be used to maintain and replace instrumentation in UAHs chemistry laboratories. This will ensure continued access to state-of-the-art equipment for faculty and students.

The William Henry McMullen III Chemistry Teaching Laboratory will be funded with a $250,000 gift. It will be located in the Shelby Center for Science and Technology. This space is home to the laboratory components of the departments introduction to chemistry course as well as some general chemistry labs.

McMullen passed away in 2006 at 81 in Raleigh, N.C., where he had worked with Pfizer for much of his career. He also played a role in the creation of high-fructose corn syrup.

He worked for a company at the time called Novo Industries AS, nowNovo Nordisk AS, from Denmark, Wadsworth says. They made enzymes. The Cuban crisis was going on, which made sugar so expensive. He designed a batch system that took the most available starch, which at the time was corn, and added enzymes to it, and it made fructose. It allowed them to industrially substitute it for sugar.

High fructose corn syrup today is an ingredient in numerous foods in grocery stores today.

McMullen was a native of Brooklyn, N.Y., and a member of one of that citys founding families. After serving in theU.S. Armyin World War II, he returned to New York to study chemistry and start a family. He had three children: Wadsworth, a daughter- Margaret McMullen, and a son Richard McMullen.

Wadsworth came to Huntsville when her husband, E.J. Butch Wadsworth, a Birmingham native, went to work for Boeing as a defense contractor. She worked as a retail store manager and training store manager with the furniture company This End Up for 19 years. After that store closed, she worked for the Bombay Company.

This was a small market, but I managed to sell a lot of furniture, Wadsworth said. A lot of it was through relationship selling. If you sold somebody a piece of furniture for their kid to get out of the crib and into the bed, eventually, you would sell them the whole bedroom and hopefully their whole house. We had some great people that you knew from the time their kids were born until their kids went off to college.

He loved being in the lab, Wadsworth said of her father. Of course, you have to have the ability to interface with others, and you have to grow in your business, so he couldnt stay in the lab. But he would have stayed there for the rest of his life if he could have.

She recalls her father taking his grandsons to his lab.

He taught them chemical experiments that completely overwhelmed them, Wadsworth reminisced. Hed turn water blue, or hed make something smoke, or hed freeze something, and it would break. He really enjoyed making an impression on young people.

UAH is a part of the University of Alabama System.

To connect with the author of this story or to comment, emailbrandonmreporter@gmail.com.

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