Chemistry

Microbeads are small, solid, manufactured plastic particles that are less than 5mm and don’t degrade or dissolve in water. They may be added to a range of products, including rinse-off cosmetics, personal care and cleaning products.
Microbeads are used as ingredients in these products for a variety of purposes. This includes as an abrasive or exfoliant, a bulking agent, for controlled timed release of active ingredients, and to prolong shelf life. They are also a relatively cheap ingredient.
Microbeads may be found in some products. These include toothpaste, sunscreen, facial scrubs, body wash, cosmetics such as foundation and blush, and other care products.

Both statements are correct.
Ammonium nitrate (NH4NO3) is a crystal-like white solid which is made in large industrial quantities. Its major use is as a source of nitrogen for fertilizer and is also used to create explosives for mining.

Ammonium nitrate does not burn on its own. Instead, it acts as a source of oxygen that can accelerate the combustion (burning) of other materials.
At high enough temperatures ammonium nitrate can violently decompose on its own. This process creates gases including nitrogen oxides and water vapour. It is this rapid release of gases that causes an explosion.

Statement 1 is correct. A desalination plant turns salt water into water that is fit to drink. The most commonly used technology used for the process is reverse osmosis where an external pressure is applied to push solvents from an area of high-solute concentration to an area of low-solute concentration through a membrane.
Statement 2 is incorrect. In India, Tamil Nadu has been the pioneer in using this technology, setting up two up in Chennai. The other states that have proposed these plants are Gujarat, which has announced to set up a 100 MLD RO plant at the Jodiya coast in Jamnagar district.
# Desalination has largely been limited to affluent countries in the Middle East and has recently started making inroads in parts of the United States and Australia

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020 has been awarded jointly to
Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna “for the development of a method for
genome editing.”
Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna have discovered one of gene technology’s
sharpest tools: the CRISPR/Cas9 genetic scissors. Using these, researchers can change
the DNA of animals, plants and microorganisms with extremely high precision.
# The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2019: John B. Goodenough, M. Stanley Whittingham and
Akira Yoshino “for the development of lithium-ion batteries”.
# The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2018: Frances H. Arnold “for the directed evolution of
enzymes”, George P. Smith and Sir Gregory P. Winter “for the phage display of peptides and
antibodies”.
# The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2017: Jacques Dubochet, Joachim Frank and Richard
Henderson “for developing cryo-electron microscopy for the high-resolution structure
determination of biomolecules in solution”.
# The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2016: Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Sir J. Fraser Stoddart and
Bernard L. Feringa “for the design and synthesis of molecular machines”.

Statement 1 is correct. CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short
Palindromic Repeats) technology is a tool for editing genomes. It allows researchers to
easily alter DNA sequences and modify gene function
CRISPRs are specialized stretches of DNA. The protein Cas9 (CRISPR-associated-9) is an enzyme that acts like a pair of molecular scissors, capable of cutting strands of DNA.
Its many potential applications include correcting genetic defects, treating and preventing the spread of diseases and improving crops.
Statement 2 is correct. CRISPR technology was adapted from the natural defense mechanisms of bacteria and archaea (the domain of single-celled microorganisms).
These organisms use CRISPR-derived RNA and various Cas proteins, including Cas9, to foil attacks by viruses and other foreign bodies. They do so primarily by chopping up and destroying the DNA of a foreign invader. When these components are transferred into other, more complex, organisms, it allows for the manipulation of genes, or “editing.”

Calcium nitrate also known as Norwegian saltpeter is mainly produced as a fertilizer, used for plant nutrition purposes, and for wastewater treatment. It is a source of both calcium and nitrogen, for plants.
‘Calcium Nitrate’ & ‘Boronated Calcium Nitrate’ is now being manufactured for the first time in India by Gujrat State Fertilizers and Chemicals -GSFC India Ltd. GSFC launched these two products in the retail market for the first time from Solan in Himachal Pradesh and Bhavnagar in Gujarat.

Sodium bicarbonate is commonly known as baking soda.

Until six years ago, such materials did not exist but today, researchers believe that they hold the key to‘post-silicon’ electronics.
• VdW materials are made of piles of ultra-thin layers that are held together by weak van der Waals bonds, which arise when atoms are in close proximity.
• The success of graphene — a well-known vdW material — stimulated scientists to look for other 2D crystals, where layers can be changed, added or removed in order to introduce new physical properties such as magnetism.
• Controlling magnetism, as is typical of such materials, could replace the current hard drive assemblies in computers and even become the key to quantum computing.

Scientists around the world have been trying for decades to recreate the unfathomable power of the sun here on Earth, and a team in China has managed to best our local star. Not for very long, though.
• The team operating the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) managed to heat the reactor’s internal plasma to 100 million degrees Celsius (212 million Fahrenheit).
• That’s six times hotter than the sun, but it doesn’t have any net power generation. In stars, hydrogen fuses into helium, and eventually into heavier elements.
• The fusion process releases large amounts of energy, and the byproducts of fusion aren’t radioactive.
• The only nuclear power we’ve managed to utilize on Earth is fission, which requires dangerous radioactive materials and comes with the risk of a reactor meltdown.

India became home to the world’s first-ever thermal battery plant, which was inaugurated in Andhra Pradesh.
Conventional battery technology: is based on the system of charging/discharging cycles that are driven by electricity.
• For example, the Lithium-ion battery, a staple of many electronic devices, consists of electric charges being transferred from electrodes.
• Energy is derived from this battery, when lithium atoms turn into lithium ions (Li+), and get stored when this reaction reverses.
• Therefore, Li-ion batteries work on the basis of electrical energy.

Thermal batteries: on the other hand, use thermal energy to operate, i.e., the energy created by temperature differences.
• Therefore, the energy transfer in thermal batteries helps store heat when heat travels from one part of the battery setup to the other.
• For that to happen, a thermal battery consists of two parts: a cool zone known as sink, and a hot source called source.
• Both these sides consist of compounds known as phase-changing materials (PCMs), which can change their state of matter on the basis of a physical/chemical reaction.

The name Novichok means “newcomer” in Russian, and applies to a group of
advanced nerve agents developed by the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s.
They were known as fourth-generation chemical weapons and were developed under a
Soviet programme codenamed Foliant.
Novichok agents have similar effects to other nerve agents – they act by blocking messages
from the nerves to the muscles, causing a collapse of many bodily functions.
While some Novichok agents are liquids, others are thought to exist in solid form. This
means they could be dispersed as an ultra-fine powder.
Nerve agents enter the body primarily through the respiratory tract, although they may
be absorbed through the eyes or skin. In the liquid state, nerve agents are hazardous via
skin or eye contact and through ingestion. Generally, all nerve agents are highly toxic and
fast acting.
# Britain says Russia used Novichok to poison former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter
Yulia in the British city of Salisbury two years ago.
# Germany says Novichok was used to poison Alexei Navalny, a critic of Russian President
Vladimir Putin.

Statement 1 is correct. Phosphine is a colorless, flammable, and explosive
gas at ambient temperature.
Statement 2 is incorrect. It is a natural gaseous carrier of phosphorus in its biogeochemical
cycles, has been found ubiquitously present in the environment. Small amounts occur
naturally from the breakdown of organic matter.
# Recent discovery of phosphine on Venus has sparked debate on presence of life outside
Earth.
On rocky planets such as Venus and Earth, phosphine can only be made by life—whether
human or microbe.
Phosphine is manufactured as an agricultural fumigant, is used in the semiconductor
industry, and is a byproduct of meth labs.
But phosphine is also made naturally by some species of anaerobic bacteria—organisms that
live in the oxygen-starved environments of landfills, marshlands, and even animal guts.

Statement 1 is correct. A fuel cell is like a battery in that it generates
electricity from an electrochemical reaction. It uses the chemical energy of hydrogen or
another fuel to cleanly and efficiently produce electricity.
Statement 2 is correct. In hydrogen fuel cell; electricity, water, and heat are the only
products.
# Fuel cell working:
A fuel cell consists of two electrodes—a negative electrode (or anode) and a positive electrode
(or cathode)—sandwiched around an electrolyte.
A fuel, such as hydrogen, is fed to the anode, and air is fed to the cathode. In a hydrogen fuel
cell, a catalyst at the anode separates hydrogen molecules into protons and electrons, which
take different paths to the cathode.
The electrons go through an external circuit, creating a flow of electricity. The protons migrate
through the electrolyte to the cathode, where they unite with oxygen and the electrons to
produce water and heat.
# The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has notified the Standards for Safety
Evaluation of vehicles being propelled by Hydrogen Fuel Cells.

Fuel cells have strong benefits over conventional combustion-based
technologies currently used in many power plants and cars.
-They produce much smaller quantities of greenhouse gases and none of the air
pollutants that create smog and cause health problems.
– Fuel cells can operate at higher efficiencies than combustion engines, and can convert
the chemical energy in the fuel to electrical energy with efficiencies of up to 60%.
-If pure hydrogen is used as a fuel, fuel cells emit only heat and water as a byproduct.
Hydrogen-powered fuel cells are also far more energy efficient than traditional combustion
technologies.
-Fuel cells are quiet during operation as they have fewer moving parts.

Octane Number/Rating, measure of the ability of a fuel to resist knocking when ignited in a mixture with air in the cylinder of an internal-combustion engine. The octane number is determined by comparing, under standard conditions, the knock intensity of the fuel with that of blends of two reference fuels: iso-octane, which resists knocking, and heptane, which knocks readily.
The higher the number, the better the fuel burns within the engine of a vehicle. Higher performance vehicles require fuels with a higher-octane rating.
Indian Oil has launched world-class premium grade Petrol (Octane 100) branded as XP100 in the country recently.
# Knocking, in an internal-combustion engine, sharp sounds caused by premature combustion of part of the compressed air-fuel mixture in the cylinder.

As with most liquids, water molecules are normally attracted to each other. This attraction creates tension at the surface of the water, often referred to as a thin “skin,” which allows some insects to glide across it.
–When leaves, twigs or other organic substances fall into water and begin decaying, they release compounds known as surfacants.
This interaction breaks the surface tension, which in turn allows air to more easily mix with water and creates bubbles. These bubbles congregate as natural foam.
–Not all foam is natural. Certain man-made products, including detergents can cause foam that is similar in appearance, but may be harmful to fish and other aquatic life.
In addition, human activities that cause an increase in algae or aquatic plant growth such as the introduction of fertilisers can cause plant and algae blooms and an increase in foam production.

Both statements are incorrect.
The HL-2M Tokamak reactor is China’s largest and most advanced nuclear fusion experimental research device.
Located in southwestern Sichuan province and completed late last year, the reactor is often called an “artificial sun” on account of the enormous heat and power it produces.
Fusion is considered the source of energy and is what powers our sun. It merges atomic nuclei to create massive amounts of energy—the opposite of the fission process used in atomic weapons and nuclear power plants, which splits them into fragments.
Unlike fission, fusion does not create radioactive waste, and carries less risk of accidents or the theft of atomic material.
# International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) is an international nuclear fusion research and engineering megaproject, which will be the world’s largest magnetic confinement plasma physics experiment. ITER Members: China, the European Union, India, Japan, Korea, Russia and the United States.

Statement 1 is correct. A tri-hydroid of nitrogen (NH3), ammonia is a building block for ammonium nitrate (NH4NO3) that is used in agriculture as a high-nitrogen fertiliser.
Ammonia is also used as a refrigerant gas, for purification of water supplies, and in the manufacture of plastics, explosives, textiles, pesticides, dyes and other chemicals.
Statement 2 is correct. Ammonia is irritating and corrosive. Exposure to high concentrations of ammonia in air causes immediate burning of the nose, throat and respiratory tract. This can cause bronchiolar and alveolar edema, and airway destruction resulting in respiratory distress or failure.
Inhalation of lower concentrations can cause coughing, and nose and throat irritation. Ammonia’s odor provides adequate early warning of its presence, but ammonia also causes olfactory fatigue or adaptation, reducing awareness of one’s prolonged exposure at low concentrations.

Benzoic acid is an organic compound which is described by the chemical formula C6H5COOH.
• It consists of a carboxyl group attached to a benzene ring. Therefore, benzoic acid is said to be an aromatic carboxylic acid.
• This compound exists as a crystalline, colorless solid under normal conditions.
• It is white and belongs to the family of carboxylic acid.
• The term ‘benzoate’ refers to the esters and salts of C6H5COOH.
• The commercial production of benzoic acid is done via the partial oxidation of toluene with oxygen, catalyzed by manganese or cobalt naphthenates.

Some important uses of C6H5COOH are listed below.
• The production of phenol involves the use of benzoic acid.
• This compound is used in ointments that prevent or treat fungal skin diseases.
• C6H5COOH is used as a preservative in the food industry.
• Benzoic acid is an ingredient in many cosmetic products, such as lipsticks.
• It is also a precursor to benzoyl chloride.
• One of the components of toothpaste, mouthwash, and face-wash creams is C6H5
• This compound is also used in the manufacture of dyes and in insect repellants.

According to the Directorate General Foreign Trade (DGFT) Beach Sand Minerals (BSM) comprised a suite of seven minerals.
• They are limonite, rutile, leucoxene (titanium being mineral), zircon (zirconium being mineral), garnet, sillimanite and monazite (a proscribed substance under the Atomic Energy Act of 1962 since it covers uranium and thorium).
• The suites of BSM were also called atomic minerals. Except garnet and sillimanite, others were prescribed substances under the Atomic Energy Act.

Mankind has known materials such as gold, silver, mercury, iron, phosphorous, sulphur and others since antiquity.
• Alchemists tried making gold out of “base” metals — with no success. But we had to wait until the English school teacher John Dalton who in 1808 came up with his “new system of chemical philosophy”, where he proposed that chemical elements are made of atoms;
• Any given element is made entirely of one kind of atom and that each atom has a characteristic weight; chemical reactions occur when atoms of different elements interact with one another

•Dalton and Thomas Thomson from England and Berzelius from Europe defined the weight of a hydrogen atom as one, and the atomic weights of other elements were measured using this standard.
• By the 1860s, the atomic weights of a large number of elements were published.

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) seized one tonne of artificially ripened bananas and plantains from a market in Tiruppur (Tamil Nadu). According to FSSAI officials, a trader had used ripening agent ethephon (2-chloroethylphosphonic acid) on the bananas and plantains kept for sale.

The United Nations announced 2019 as the International Year of the Periodic Table of the Chemical Elements to highlight its first publication in 1869.

 The periodic table as we know it today was first designed by the Russian scientist Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev.

 This year marks the 150th anniversary of the first publication of the periodic table by Mendeleev.

 Since its creation, the periodic table has been at the centre of a lot of vivid debates and is now considered as “one of the most important and influential achievements in modern science reflecting the essence not only of chemistry, but also of physics, biology and other disciplines.”

 Mendeleev’s genius lies in the acknowledgement that at the time, not all the elements were known yet, so he left gaps in the table for undiscovered elements

• At that time, only 63 elements had been identified. Still the properties of five other elements (the gaps brilliantly added to complete the table) could already been determined using the table.

Simultaneously removing heavy metals such as arsenic, chromium, cadmium and mercury from waste water with very high efficiency now appears possible, thanks to the work of researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay.

 The carbon-based nanostructure that the team fabricated shows 80-90% adsorption efficiency for all the four heavy metals studied.

 No electricity is required for the nanostructure to remove heavy metals from water as it allows for gravity-driven purification of the water.

 The nanostructures can be recycled and reused multiple times.

 While there is an initial drop of about 8% after the first cycle, the efficiency remains constant at 75-85% in the subsequent cycles.

 The carbon nanostructure is able to adsorb the heavy metals in the wide range of pH conditions — pH 2 to 13.

While conventional sodium sulphur batteries require very high temperature (300 degree C) for operation, researchers at the Indian Institute of technology (IIT) Madras have designed a new sodium sulphur battery that can be operated at room temperature.

By operating the battery at room temperature, the team was able to achieve higher charge storage capacity (technically called the specific capacity) and nearly zero self-discharge when the battery is not being used.

Converting the global-warming compound carbon dioxide into a useful fuel has been engaging the attention of scientists for some time.

 Scientists at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) have discovered an easier and cheaper way of converting CO2 into methane. Scientists have generally used metal nanoparticles as catalysts for this process.

 But TIFR employed ‘defected silica’ — silicon dioxide with a few oxygen atoms knocked off — instead of the costlier metal nanoparticles.

 ‘Defected silca’ has ‘holes’, where the oxygen atoms used to be. These holes get filled by hydrogen atoms to form silicon hydride. For this, hydrogen molecules, that exist in nature in pairs (hence H2) are ripped apart.

 Each hydrogen atom, then, is desperate to join hands with something; alongside, defected silica is agonising for something to fill the gap where earlier oxygen atoms used to be.

 A happy marriage results. But this marriage is short-lived because carbon dioxide dives in to break the marriage.

 The carbon in CO2 and the hydrogen in silicon hydride desert their spouses and join hands to become methane.

 The leftovers, silicon and oxygen, re-marry to form silicon dioxide — the original catalyst.

Polycrack technology is world’s first patented heterogeneous catalytic

process which converts multiple feed stocks into hydrocarbon liquid fuels, gas, carbon

and water. Polycrack Plant can be fed with all types of Plastic, Petroleum sludge, Unsegregated

MSW (Municipal Solid Waste) with moisture up to 50%, E–Waste, Automobile

fluff, Organic waste including bamboo, garden waste etc., and Jatropha fruit and palm

bunch.

Polycrack has the following advantages over the conventional approach of treating solid

waste:-

• Pre-segregation of waste is not required to reform the waste. Waste as collected can

be directly fed into Polycrack.

• It has high tolerance to moisture hence drying of waste is not required.
• Waste is processed and reformed within 24 hours.
• It is an enclosed unit hence the working environment is dust free.
• Excellent air quality surrounding the plant.
• Biological decomposition is not allowed as the Waste is treated as it is

received.

• The foot print of the plant is small hence the area required for installing the plant is

less when compared with conventional method of processing.

• All constituents are converted into valuable energy thereby making it Zero Discharge

Process.

• Gas generated in the process is re-used to provide energy to the system thereby

making it self-reliant and also bring down the operating cost.

• There is no atmospheric emission during the process unlike other conventional

methods except for combustion gases which have pollutants less than the

prescribed norms the world over.

• Operates around 450 degrees, making it a low temperature process when compared

with other options.

• Safe and efficient system with built-in safety features enables even an unskilled user

to operate the machine with ease.

• Low capital cost and low operating cost.
• Fully automated system requires minimum man power.

NOTE: A patent is defined as a statutory privilege granted by the government to inventors,

and to other persons deriving their rights from the inventor, for fixed years, to exclude other

persons from manufacturing, using or selling a patented product or process.

• Hence a patent can be for a process or for a product. There is strict divergence

between product and process patent regimes. The developed countries follow

product patent system. On the other, process patent system is preferred by the

developing world.

• The two systems are known for their different levels of protection to inventors. Under

a process patent, the patent is granted for a particular manufacturing process, and

not for the product itself.

• Any other person can produce the same product through some other PROCESS,

modifying the various parameters. The implication is that there will be more than

one producer for the same product because of the possibility of different process for

the manufacturing of the product.

A new, curious mineral has been discovered inside a diamond unearthed from a mine in South Africa.

 The mineral has been named goldschmidtite, after Victor Moritz Goldschmidt, the Norwegian scientist acknowledged as the founder of modern geochemistry.

 Goldschmidtite has an unusual chemical signature for a mineral from Earth’s mantle, according to the University of Alberta, a student of which discovered it.

 While the mantle is dominated by elements such as magnesium and iron, goldschmidtite has high concentrations of niobium, potassium and the rare earth elements lanthanum and cerium.

 PhD student Nicole Meyer found a single grain of the mineral in the diamond, unearthed in Koffiefontein, South Africa.

 The university described it as dark green and opaque.