Tuesday, 17th June 2008 (1294 views)

By using gold atoms, chemists at University of California Riverside (UCR) have discovered a green and inexpensive way to prepare amines.

Amines are compounds produced from ammonia and are often used in things like solvents, detergents and dyes.

The current method employed to produce amines results in a great deal of waste byproducts - around three tons of byproduct is created for every one ton of amines which manufacturers must pay to get rid of.

Guy Bertrand, chemistry professor and head of the laboratory responsible for the discover, found that using a gold compound in the creation of amines leaves no waste and is therefore cheaper.

"One of the greatest challenges in chemistry is to develop atom-efficient processes for the combination of ammonia with single organic molecules to create carbon-nitrogen bonds," said Professor Bertrand.

The chemistry professor joined UCR in 2001 and leads the first permanent French science laboratory in the US, according to the UCR online newsroom.

 

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