The Journal of the American Chemical Society highlights as a 'JACS Spotlight' a new collaboration between scientists from CiQUS and different institutions in USA and Switzerland.
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are ubiquitous pollutants formed during the combustion of fuels and other organic materials. The formation of PAHs are of practical concern since these compounds are a serious health hazard.
For years, hundreds of PAHs have been identify from fuel combustion residues by conventional methods such high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). However, these residues are extremely complex molecular mixtures, so several large PAHs could not be identified due to the lack of analytical standards to compare with.
Now, in a new work published recently on the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS) and highlighted as JACS Spotlight, researchers from Spain, USA and Switzerland have introduced a new method to discover new analytical standards. First, physicists at IBM Zurich led by Leo Gross used atomic force microscopy (AFM) to identify previously unknown PAHs present in fuel combustion residues; later, organic chemists at CiQUS led by Prof. Diego Peña designed a synthetic route to obtain a new seven-ring PAH visualized by AFM in the residues. After this new PAH was synthesized by Sabela Quiroga -a PhD student working in the Guitián/Pérez/Peña group- the PAH was finally sent to the group of Mary J. Wornat at Louisiana State University, who used it as analytical standard to quantify its presence in fuel combustion residues.
The new work provides a route to develop new analytical standards by symbiotically using AFM, chemical synthesis, and modern analytical tools.
References
Paper
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/jacs.8b02525
Highlighted as JACS Spotlight