Helium: Up, up, and away~

As we go into the topic of ideal gases this week, we are going to encounter the noble gas, helium numerous times. So, why don't we find out more about this gas?


Helium should not be an unfamiliar gas. Everybody knows that is the gas that makes balloons float. Do you know what happens when you try to talk after inhaling helium? Check this video out if you have never tried it before:

Before everybody runs out to buy helium balloons to try sounding like Donald Duck, let me tell you a sobering news: the supply of helium on our planet is running out. We can expect to run out of helium entirely within the next six years. Apart from having a world without balloons that fly away when released, the depletion of helium is going to affect the scientific world in a very significant way. Helium is needed for analytical methods such as mass spectroscopy (to determine the types of elements making up a compound) and NMR spectroscopy (to determine the structure of an organic compound). Commercially, it is also used as a coolant in MRI scanners (used to produce scans of brains in hospitals), and to produce an inert and protective environment for welding. 

The helium we have on earth now is formed from the excruciatingly slow decay of radioactive element, uranium. This means that the nucleus of uranium breaks up into smaller nuclei, and in the process, giving out an atom of helium. Decay of the uranium nucleus requires a lot of energy, and takes thousands of years to occur. Even after it is produced, much of it escapes into space of the upper atmosphere, which makes it impossible for us to capture. A scientist said that the supply of helium we are utilising now "has been made over the approximate 4.5 billion of years the Earth has been around". With no fast processes to replenish all the helium mankind has been using, it is no wonder that we will run out of this noble gas.

Some people may ask, can't we artificially create more helium? Well, no. It will require an insanely high amount of energy to imitate how Nature synthesizes helium -- it takes thousands and thousands of years to form helium, even with all the crazily high pressure and temperature in the Earth's mantle. So, we just have to live with the fact that this gas is, for now, non-renewable. 

The next time you play with a helium balloon, cherish it. Who knows, maybe your children will never ever get a chance to experience the joys of a balloon that flies away when not held on to tightly.

Okay, I admit. I have not watched this movie, and neither did I know who this Iron Man is until I heard about the character when watching this wonderful drama series "The Big Bang Theory". But since EVERYBODY is talking about it, I decided to check out what EVERYBODY was saying about it online. And look! I found this very interesting article discussing the Chemistry behind Tony Stark's miraculous synthesis of a new element to cure his palladium poisoning.

Read the full article from New Scientist here.

And while you're at it, why not check out real parallels to the fantastical technology displayed in the first Iron Man movie here.

Have you heard of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch? It is a whole collection of marine litter made up of plastics, chemical sludge and other debris in the Pacific Ocean.

This offshore rubbish dump was formed by ocean currents converging at that area of the ocean, and is now estimated to be twice the size of Texas. To give you a rough gauge of how humongous the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is, The area of Singapore is 710 km² and Texas is only slightly smaller at 696 km². This means that the whole Garbage Patch is almost twice the size of Singapore! Imagine how much litter Man has been allowing into our oceans to create such an astonishing feature.


And don't think that this is as bad as it can get: There is also a similar garbage patch in the Atlantic Ocean.

For more information about the astounding pollution caused by Man, read the following articles:

Why is the World's Biggest Landfill in the Pacific Ocean?

Atlantic Garbage Patch: Pacific Gyre is Not Alone

"Healthier" salt for potato chips?

We have just learnt in Chemical Bonding that sodium chloride comes in the form of a giant ionic lattice, with the sodium and chloride ions regularly arranged in stacked layers.

In such crystals, the ions can be arranged in different ways, the most common arrangements being the simple cubic, body-centred cubic, and face-centred cubic.

Sodium chloride adopts the face-centred cubic system, with each sodium ion being surrounded by 6 chloride ions in an octahedral manner.

The company that makes Lay's potato chips, Pepsico is looking at changing the crystal lattice of sodium chloride so as to make the salt that they use for their potato chips healthier. It has been found that while sodium chloride, as we know it, is very soluble in water, only 20% of the crystals on the chips dissolve in our mouths when we eat them. This means that most of the salt we are ingesting does not contribute to the saltiness of the food, but has the undesirable effect of increasing our sodium intake. It has been found that high sodium intakes lead to many health problems, such as high blood pressure.

In an effort to make potato chips healthier, scientists are trying to increase the surface area of the sodium chloride crystals so that they will dissolve more completely on our tongues. This will allow the manufacturers to put less salt in our potato chips, but still maintain the ideal level of saltiness that we love in our chips.

To read the original article on this from Popular Science, click here: http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-04/frito-lay-changes-shape-salt

New Element: Copernicium

A new element has been added to the Periodic Table!

That box that says Uub (ununbium) which has an atomic number of 112? It now has a proper name: Copernicium.

This element was first discovered in 1996 by a group of of German scientists. They made the element by combining zianc ions with lead . The element produced is radioactive, and is extremely short-lived. However, IUPAC took 13 years to recognise this claim and officially acknowledged the element and the German scientists who discovered the element.

Naming this element proved to be a hassle too. Trivia: it is a rule that elements in the Periodic Table cannot be named after a living person. So, the scientists decided to name it after Copernicus, the first astronomer to propose that the Earth is not in the centre of the universe, and it orbits around the sun. 

Upon naming the element, the scientists had to propose a symbol for this new element. They wanted to use the symbol Cp, but it was rejected because Cp was already used to represent cyclopentadiene. On top of that, Cp is commonly used to denote heat capacity. After all the trouble, it was finally decided on February 19, 2010 that this new element is named Copernicium, with the symbol Cn.