Saturday, January 8, 2011

World largest stable synthetic molecule revealed

Dieter Schlüter at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich (my home university) announced that his team successfully created the world's largest stable synthetic molecule ever made to date. PG5 has a diameter of 10 nanometres and a mass equal to 200 million hydrogen atoms (Previously, polystyrene was the largest stable synthetic molecule, at 40 million hydrogen masses). PG5 could find applications in delivering drugs, which could either dock to their surface via the different branches, or nestle in the spaces produced by the molecule folding in on itself.

Read more here: Tree-like giant is largest molecule ever made - physics-math - 07 January 2011 - New Scientist

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