## SCIENCE behind ORMUS / M-State Elements / ORMES: page 2 (page created August 2007)
## Simple Magnet Can Control Color of Liquid , July 03, 2007. http://www.physorg.com/news102689328.html
Image shows the solution of iron oxide in water changing color under a magnetic field, with increasing strength of the field from left to right. Photo credit: Yin laboratory, UCR
University of California, Riverside nanotechnologists have succeeded in controlling the color of very small particles of iron oxide suspended in water simply by applying an external magnetic field to the solution. The discovery has potential to greatly improve the quality and size of electronic display screens and to enable the manufacture of products such as erasable and rewritable electronic paper and ink that can change color eletromagnetically.
In their experiments, the researchers found that by changing the strength of the magnetic field they were able to change the color of the iron oxide solution similar to adjusting the color of a television screen image.
(to link the article above use: #SMCC)
## Sub-Stratum (S2) Chemistry and ORMUS, by Ron Cusson, PhD, http://www.subtleenergies.com/ormus/tw/S2Chemistry.htm
c/o MMP SOLUTIONS, 4185 W. Lake Mary blvd, #215, Lake Mary, FL 32746 http://www.restoringnature.com , e-mail: roncusson@earthlink.net.
# Introduction: In order to properly understand the relationship between ORMUS and Chemistry, we explore here new levels to our knowledge of nature and how an expanded theory of relativity contributes to this sub-stratum (S2) of our knowledge. One reason why this new theory deserves the attention of everyone is that it impacts all aspects of our lives. For example it came as a surprise to us that there are eminently practical applications of S2 Science to technologies such as S2 nutrition and S2 agriculture. The applications are starting to show up in the world and offer a vision of vastly improved health for all of us. How is that possible?
Science deals with our knowledge and understanding of nature. As our understanding has grown, it has usually happened that the phenomena that we observed at a given level of refinement and detail could be explained by delving into a deeper level of detail, in effect into a sub-stratum of the given level. Such a sub-stratum we will call here an S2 level from the current levels of detail being considered in consensus science.
The most refined level of science that we currently have, involves quantum physics in the context of Einsteins theory of special relativity. We note en-passant that these two are not totally free of contradiction with each other, especially when it comes to the theory of measurements and observations. Such contradictions are usually a sign that there may be a relevant S2 level that needs to be considered to resolve the contradictions.
Special relativity deals with phenomena that take place in 4-dimensional space-time, that is, 3 space dimensions (x, y, z coordinates) and one time dimension, usually labeled t. In this model, space is assumed to be made of points with no size of their own.
Starting with such a 4-dimensional space time, quantum mechanics derives the existence of 6 electro-magnetic fields, namely 3 electric fields, Ex, Ey, Ez and 3 magnetic fields, Bx, By, Bz. This derivation uses sophisticated functional integral methods that we will not examine in detail here, since there are good textbooks which go into many more of these details for those who would have an interest in such things.
It is believed in some quarters that from the notions of physics derived from quantum mechanics and relativity, one should be able to derive the properties of chemistry and from the properties of chemistry, derive the properties of biology. Such a program has had rather modest successes, so that a great many questions in biology remain unanswered, and by now, a growing number of questions in chemistry also go begging. A most interesting one is: What is the life-force? and does it arise from consensus (= Standard = S1) physics and chemistry? So far, no satisfactory answers to these questions have been given.
In this article, we will examine what happens when we study relativity at the S2 level, a level that goes deeper than 4-dimensional space-time. This S2 level of relativity is what we called Tetrahedral Relativity, here. Then we will discuss some concepts of S2 Chemistry and its relationship to ORMUS and lastly, notions of S2 Biology. The big surprise is that the life-force (or a very good candidate for it!) emerges already at the level of Tetrahedral Relativity.
# Tetrahedral Relativity as an S2 Level of Special Relativity
The gist of Tetrahedral Relativity (TRel) is that it is possible to extend Einsteins theory of relativity, defined on 4-dimensional space-time, to a larger one where a point in 3 dimensions is replaced by a very small tetrahedron (a 3-sided pyramid) with 4 distinct apex points. Thus TRel operates in a 13-dimensional space consisting of the usual Einstein 4-dimensional space time and 9 internal dimensions, being the internal degrees of freedom of vibrating and rotating tetrahedra. These tetrahedra are not normally visible to the naked eye, because they are extremely small, probably many times smaller that the size of even the smallest known particles.
In TRel, we can do a similar derivation as was done with Special Relativity and we find that there are now 14 electromagnetheric (EME) fields, 8 more than the usual 6 (being 3 electric and 3 magnetic fields) of Einsteins relativity.
The properties of these 14 fields are best studied using quantum physics as applied at the S2 Level of current consensus physics.
# S2 (Quantum) Physics
Quantum Physics deals, among other things, with creation and annihilation operators for individual quanta of the fields and we soon find that, at the S2 level where we operate in a 13-dimensional space, the 14 fields break up into two groups of 7. The first group actually consists of fields that we are already familiar with, namely, electric fields, magnetic fields and the gravitational field (G). In component form, we have the 7 fields: Ex, Ey, Ez, G, Bx, By, Bz. It is indeed somewhat surprising to find gravity put on par with ordinary electro-magnetism but there has been considerable speculation in the alternative physics literature in the past decades that such unification should be found. We will not go into the mathematical details here of how gravity shows up here, other than to say that TRel offers a novel physical interpretation that involves consciousness itself, of covariant vs. contravariant coordinates. It is this alternative interpretation of these two mathematical concepts that allows gravity to enter in this way, above.
But the greater surprise comes when we study the properties of the other 7 EME fields of TRel. For one thing, they show up as having a memory effect, so that all transformations of these 7 have a permanent effect on these 7 fields. One consequence of this is that once created, it is practically impossible to destroy these fields as this would require a detailed knowledge of the field history and of its complete environment, since its creation. The mathematical tool, out of which this property emerges, is the lack of associativity of the propagator that traces out the field history. But enough said about the mathematical physics. Instead we turn to attempts at constructing a theory of elementary particles and atoms, using S2 Quantum Physics.
Some 3 decades ago, in Cambridge University, England Salaam and his student Philips did a study of the properties of the particles that one might find by considering the group theoretical structures that are possible in the 10-dimensional space that results when we consider the 9-dimensional internal space of TRel along with the time variable. Although their technique did not say anything about the elementary particles that were known at the time, it did predict with amazing accuracy the masses of hundreds of neutral atoms that are known to exist in the current science of S1 chemistry. In this theory, protons and electrons are each made out of 3 quarks but the quark themselves are each made up of 3 quarklets. Thus the proton is made of 9 quarklets and the electron is made of another 9 quarklets so that a neutral hydrogen atom is made up of 18 quarklets. At this point, it is easy to surmise that Philips quarklet is the ANU of Occult Chemistry.
Philips did not study in details the physical properties predicted for these atoms, but in the last 3 decades many atoms such as gold and other rare earth elements have been found to have wondrous new properties, when treated in new and unique ways, such as apparent room temperature superconductivity and even psychedelic properties when ingested orally in various preparations. Such properties are unexplained using S1 chemistry models but can be incorporated in the S2 chemistry of these atoms when they make the transition from being made of electrons and nucleus to being made of quarklets/ANU.
The S2 physics of atomic properties is substantially different from normal physics and as such has given rise to considerable controversy over these same last 3 decades. For this reason we will not delve further here into this intricate and amazing realm. Instead, we explore briefly some of the elements of S2 chemistry.
# S2 Chemistry and its Relation to ORMUS
Chemistry is often partitioned into several branches, such as inorganic chemistry, organic chemistry and biochemistry, the chemistry that is observable in living biological systems.
Over the last thousand years of our recorded science history, there have often been reports of processes that might have been classified as chemistry of one kind or other but which occurred in a context that seemed rather incongruent with the science principles known at the time. Such reports have become known as alchemy. Perhaps the single greatest characteristic of such reports is that of being fickle and difficult to reproduce, as if it mattered who was doing the experiment, implying that the consciousness of the experimenter could affect the results.
When S2 chemistry intrudes into inorganic chemistry, it is often called alchemy, with its contradictions and difficulties. But when S2 chemistry intrudes into biochemistry, the resulting controversies unfortunately often degenerate into calls of quackery.
One of the most famous such controversies arises from the 17O (Oxygen 17 has 8 protons and 9 neutrons!) Nuclear Magnetic Resonance study of the line broadening of water coming from various sources. A qualitatively plausible argument has been made that if the water clusters contain a large number of molecules, the line width will be large because such clusters have incoherent vibrational modes. Similarly, when the cluster size is small, the line width should be narrower, indicating greater coherence. But, it has not been possible to derive this result from formal statistical mechanics applied to large clusters of water molecules.
Yet, it is known that tap water has some of the largest line widths, up to 125 Hz. It is also known that mountain spring water has some of the smallest line width at around 63 Hz. It has been observed that bottling of this mountain spring water will often increase the width almost up to the width of tap water. More recently, work utilizing novel treatment of water has reported line widths around 50 Hz, thus deepening the puzzle.
The S2 chemistry of water vastly enlarges the domain of possible structures for water. Water molecules can be made by attaching one atom of oxygen to two atoms of hydrogen, but this is not always a permanent structure. Under appropriate circumstances, water molecules can undergo a phase transition in which the oxygen and hydrogen disappear and are replaced by 324 ANU (see Occult Chemistry by C.W. Leadbeater and Annie Besand) which undergo complex orbital motions in the water atom. It is probable that the line width will vary depending on the fraction of the time when water is in the ANU configuration. Such an explanation suggests that the line width may not depend only on the cluster size and shape but also on the fraction of the time that the water molecules spend in the ANU state. The existence of this ANU state of water is of course a property of the S2 chemistry of water. There is a vast array of other properties of S2 chemistry, some of which we will mention as needed below.
Water is hardly ever totally pure and can contain molecules that have known ORMUS properties. The study of these ORMUS properties of certain molecules falls into the purview of S2 Chemistry as it is most probable that many of the ORMUS properties can be understood on the basis of the alternative ANU structure of the elements of the periodic table, as described in the book Occult Chemistry mentioned above.
# S2 Biology
It is often pointed out that the molecular complexity of DNA allows these extraordinarily large molecules to carry all sorts of information about the cell in which this DNA is found and, when appropriate, about the organism to which individual cells belong.
S2 Biology, then, concerns itself with the range of phenomena that come into play when one considers that each atom in our DNA has the ability to transmute itself into its ANU representation where the number of ANU is around 18 times larger than the atomic number. Such a transmutation now allows the same DNA to carry astronomically larger amounts of information than just the base pair information that is being mapped out in the human genome project.
In S2 biology, one recognizes that these S2 levels of our DNA are continuously being programmed and reprogrammed with information that is pertinent to the participation of the particular cell into the organism as a whole. This happens through the existence of etheric energy filaments that emerge from the DNA of each cell and then travel through the body up through the pineal gland, to emerge as a thick, divergent bundle of antenna-like filaments that extend up to around 20 feet away from the head of the person. These filaments carry some queries from the cell into the surrounding space (which is full of tetrahedra) around the body where the information about the whole organism is stored as vibrational modes of these tetrahedra. This collection of vibrational modes and the 14 tetrahedral EME fields that accompany it, constitutes the light-body of the person. This light-body formulates an answer to the query of the cell and the answer is transmitted back to the cell via the etheric energy filaments, so that the cell can take appropriate action, for example, shifting its protein fabrication profile, to suit the goals of the whole organism.
In essence, S2 biology offers a mechanism to correlate the behavior of trillions of cells in a coherent fashion that is structured by the goals and attitude of the consciousness of the individual, which reside in its light-body, substantially outside the physical body as we usually perceive it with ordinary eyes. In truth, we have here a much, much deeper level of psychosomatic phenomena that what can be explained by dissecting a cadaver which is but an empty shell with no light body left.
In this approach of S2 biology, it becomes possible to formulate nutritional programs and agricultural programs that can greatly facilitate the healing of all sorts of conditions and can ultimately allow the organism to develop many new capabilities that are sometimes written up in Eastern mystical texts, such as bi-location, remote viewing, teleportation and even time-travel of a different sort.
# Applications to S2 agriculture and S2 Nutrition
In the S2 model of the biology of our body, it becomes important to supply nutrients that take into account the relationship between the light body and the atoms and molecules in our body.
We might imagine what the ideal nutritional profile for a body might be as this body develops from a fertilized egg in the womb of the mother. Clearly that would mean a certain nutritional profile for the mother, and so on up to several generations back.
Correspondingly, we can imagine what biological catastrophes can befall our body and our light-body when the nutritional profile is selected from an agricultural profile that has been ignoring the right principles of S2 Chemistry in growing crops that will be used to prepare food to feed the body and the light-body as it grows from a fetus to an adult.
Given that the overwhelming majority of the population of the planet is currently fed from plants grown by ignoring the principles of S2 Chemistry, we believe that our immediate attention needs to be focused on deriving rules of agriculture and nutrition that specifically aimed at healing the most egregious of our biological deficiencies acquired through decades and often generations now, of misnutrition, being a nutrition that is abundant in calories but deeply deficient in S2 nutritional value.
In the raw food movement, it is often stated that one needs to ingest live food, being food that is close to the form in which this food was in when it was growing. That is certainly a worthy goal in itself, but it is not as effective as it sounds, if we dont apply the principles of S2 nutrition and S2 agriculture in our animal foods and our vegetable foods growing and preparation. In other words, there is a vast range of aliveness in our vegetable and animal food, both on the hoof and when it reaches our table.
As an other example of the confusion that currently reigns, the organic food movement goes to great length to specify what should not be included when growing food but says preciously little about what should be included to maximize the S2 nutrition. As a result, organic foods are often hardly more S2 nutritious than their commercial counterpart.
Biologists have known for a long time that the mineral profile of our blood is amazingly similar to that of sea water. So, many enlightened growers have found that they could fertilize their fields with whole sea water, even though it contains too much sodium for the optimum health of plants. Other researchers have found ways to decrease the sodium content of their sea water fertilizers so that plants can thrive even better. S2 chemistry offers an interesting explanation for the value of using such broad spectrum mineral-rich vegetable tonics. It turns out that the very small amounts of rare earth elements in such tonics has the ability to generate substantial amounts of S2 etheric EME fields that are sometimes called life-force when they are present in crops and in the body. These S2 EME fields can, in turn, greatly strengthen the communication between the DNA of our cells and our light-body in the surrounding space around our physical body, by means of strengthening the etheric energy filaments that run out of our DNA, as discussed earlier.
Another avenue of S2 nutrition is the abundant use of seafood and sea vegetables prepared and served with as little processing as possible. The art of sashimi in Japan often takes this to high refinements and one of the great delicacies of this culture is the krills, these shrimp-like creatures of the ocean which constitute the staple food of the majority of the sea-going mammals on this planet.
Another example of S2 nutritional miracles is the ancient limu (a brown seaweed) drink that the citizens of Tonga have been consuming for millennia. Research has shown that the limu seaweed contains a complex of glyconutrients called fucoidan. These rare-earth-rich polysaccharides have the ability to stimulate the adult stem cells of people for the purpose of healing all sorts of conditions, especially those whose root lay in the fundamental misnutrition of our time.
Given the ease with which this seaweed could be grown just about anywhere in the tropics, it is easy to conceive of a situation where not only would the limu and other similar seaweed would be used as a nutritional supplement, but the left-over from the fabrication of these supplements could be used as fabulous organic fertilizers for land-locked agriculture. This would open the door to growing agricultural products that would have many times more life-force and therefore healing abilities that what we currently are doing. Similarly, our farm animals are largely vegetarians and feeding them with produce that have more life-force would result in animal foods that would be a great deal more S2 nutritious.
Of course it is often said that our oceans are currently so polluted that many of its products are contaminated. S2 chemistry can help here too by strengthening our immune system so that we can detoxify our system of these heavy metal toxins. Here it is important to keep in mind that when an element undergoes its phase transition to its S2 form, its nucleus and electrons disappear and the element contains only ANU. In that form, the element can actually undergo a biological transmutation to another element that is less damaging to our physiology. This work was done for many decades by Louis Kervran of the French Academy. This opens up new avenues for the detoxification of our bodily functions, via biological transmutations.
# Conclusion: We have started from the basic principles of Tetrahedral Relativity and we have briefly traced our path through S2 Science down to S2 nutrition and S2 agriculture. We have discussed how S2 Chemistry relates to ORMUS.
One question that might well be on our readers mind is why do we not give a lot of attention to S2 Technologies, as surely they must exist abundantly. We will give 2 reasons for this omission, at this time.
First, our planet is currently in an emergency situation with respect to health and diseases and this is the issue that needs to be addressed most urgently. Under these circumstances, we can easily argue that inventing new ways to teleport our automobiles across town can wait a while longer while we heal ourselves.
Second, we had an interesting surprise during the development of the basics of Tetrahedral relativity and that surprise was that the very basis of the structure of space-time involves consciousness at its S2 level. So, we should expect that S2 Technology will have the interesting properties of being affected by the consciousness of the users of the machines offered by this technology. But when users are emotionally sick and unable to contemplate a healthy outlook on the phenomenon of growing and changing, there is a great risk that these machines could be thwarted by these unhealthy outlooks and used for destructive purposes, instead of being helpful adjoins to our lives.
Over time, we do believe that S2 Technologies will have a great deal to offer humanity, especially when we have set in motion the healing of our physical body and our light-body. Once that happens, we can truly say that we have found paradise on Earth.
# Acknowledgement: We are immensely grateful to a number of enlightening conversations with Barry Carter bcarter@igc.org, who has been a source of inspiration at many junctions in this work.
# BIO of Ron Cusson: Ron Cusson obtained a PhD in physics and Mathematics from California Institute of Technology in 1965 and for 20 years practiced nuclear physics in the academic world and for the US Government. He retired in 1998 to focus on developing healing modalities as applications of S2 Science and Biology. This work is ongoing.
(to link the article above use: #OS2)
## Physicists Advance Theory For New Class Of Quantum Phase Transition, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/10/011029073453.htm
Science Daily HOUSTON, Oct. 25, 2001 ; The complete workings of quantum mechanics and how it affects the universe is still a mystery, but Rice University -led physicists have made a key advancement in understanding how complex quantum fluctuations play a role in the transformation of metals from one electronic state to another.
The findings provide insight into the electronic structure of strongly correlated materials that are potentially significant for far-reaching technological applications in nanotechnology and high-temperature superconductors. Rice University theoretical physicist Qimiao Si and his team of researchers report their discovery of an entirely new class of critical point, the point at which a complex system undergoes a change between two distinctive phases marking a substantial advance in the study of phase transitions. Familiar examples of thermal phase transitions, those driven by changes in temperature, are when water changes to steam or to ice.
Quantum phase transitions, on the other hand, are those driven by quantum fluctuations and dictated by Heisenberg’s famous uncertainty principle.”The findings clarify, for the first time, what experimentalists have observed but were not able to explain because the results apparently contradict the traditional theory for quantum-critical metals a theory that has held sway since the mid-1970’s,” said Qimiao Si, associate professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University.
Their research is published in the Oct. 25 issue of the journal Nature. Authors on the report are Si of Rice; Silvio Rabello, postdoctoral fellow at Rice; Kevin Ingersent, associate professor of physics at the University of Florida, Gainesville; and Llewellun Smith, graduate student at Rice. The researchers’ theory provides a basis for the quantum mechanism that gives seemingly conventional metals unconventional properties. In effect, they discovered a new quantum critical metallic state of matter. It is “quantum critical” because the transformation is dependent upon quantum fluctuations.
“The theoretical findings show that, under suitable conditions, quantum critical metals contain ‘critical local excitations’, collective electronic objects which have very low energy, yet occur at one point in space,” Si said. The notion of local criticality could be applicable to a range of strongly correlated metals, including high-temperature superconductors. There is a growing realization that the apparent breakdown of the standard theory of metals Landau’s Fermi-liquid theory in high-temperature superconductors and related systems may result from proximity to quantum criticality.
Si, associate professor of physics, and his colleagues looked at a class of strongly correlated electron systems: heavy fermion metals, which contain the so-called rare earth elements and actinides, or radioactive metals. Among the most famous heavy fermions are the plutonium metals.
In strongly correlated electron systems, the interaction between neighboring electrons is so strong that the electrons can not be considered separately, as is done in describing simple metals and insulators. Theoretically, it is very difficult to study complex behavior so Si and his team looked for benchmarks where they could understand the behavior.
Physicists have learned how to manipulate, or fine-tune, the degree to which the uncertainty principle comes into play in strongly correlated electron systems, allowing them to observe a quantum critical point. Experimentalists have previously done just that in heavy fermion metals. When electrons are strongly interacting, even a small change in some external variable can have a dramatic impact, resulting in a change from one type of electronic or magnetic state to another.By changing the parameters of the system, Si and his colleagues were able to tune the system to be exactly at or on the cusp of the transition, where electrons behave most collectively and paradoxically, where accurate theoretical treatment is easier to carry through. Taking into account both quantum fluctuations and strong electron-electron interactions, they discovered the surprising “locally critical point.”
In correlated electron physics, a frontier of condensed matter physics, scientists are trying to get an understanding of all of the electronic processes governing natural materials and man-made ones. “Our field is still very much in its infancy,” Si said. “We are looking for some very basic principles that govern how new electronic states of matter emerge as a result of quantum fluctuations and electron-electron interactions.”
This research was supported by the National Science Foundation, the Texas Center for Superconductivity at the University of Houston and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Rice University.
(to link the article above use: #PAQT)
## Physics and the Mind, http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/mm/articles/PM.html
Like those involved in the organisations referenced elsewhere http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/mm/misc/misc.html on these pages, I have doubts as to whether our present orthodox science is as all-embracing as some would claim. For example, psychic phenomena (see relevant pages here http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/mm/articles/psi.html ; I will not try to argue in favour of the existence of such in these pages as people come to the subject with prejudices sufficiently strong as to make that not a useful activity) are currently believed by many to suggest that the hypothesis of the nonlocality of mind be taken seriously. Thanks to Bell, some forms of nonlocality have to be taken seriously in any event, and Fotini Pallikari-Viras and I have argued in a Foundations of Physics paper http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/papers/bell.html that the two nonlocalities may be connected (Valentini (reference list http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/mm/articles/Val_refs.txt ) has come to similar conclusions).
But let us leave this delicate issue and look in a more conventional domain. Niels Bohr over half a century ago raised the question “will the uncertainty principle interfere with our ability to see the mechanisms of life?”. Delbruck replied (excuse the paraphrase) “Don’t be silly, Niels, life is just chemistry and we’ll soon understand it all!”. Bohr retreated. How unfortunate! Up to a point, yes, biology can be understood in terms of chemistry and classical physics. But at all levels? In physics, subtle quantum effects occur that can’t be understood in such terms; why should biosystems be immune?
A colleague answers to this question that biosystems have amazing design features that insulate them from nasty things such as quantum fluctuations. But what if there are some situations where quantum effects are useful, for example by way of providing mechanisms for information processing? I am afraid I don’t buy the argument. Let me however move on and provide links to papers where I and collaborators discuss the point of whether QM is in reality a full theory. The first is a detailed critique of the Bohr-Delbruck argument http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/papers/QMlimits.html , arguing that we hide from ourselves the way the methodology prescribed by QM feeds back on to the physics. Other papers:
The non-locality paper http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/papers/bell.html again
Paper given at the Urbino conference http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/papers/urbino.html on Microphysical Reality and Quantum Formalism
a conference report discussing the possible role of consciousness http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/mm/articles/athens.html in acquiring knowledge
“Beyond Quantum Theory” revisited http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0105027 (UK mirror http://uk.arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0105027 )
consider the possible existence of descriptions or ways of knowing complementary to the orthodox ones. My guess is that the physics (and science) of the 21st. century will revolve very much round the insight that current orthodoxy is far too restrictive in how it views reality, and will entail serious attempts to get to grips with the problem of “subtle energy”. This is a cue to provide a link to a paper on the ‘Elusivity of Nature ‘. In this connection see also the papers on the subject of music http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/mm/articles/music.html.
(to link the article above use: #OS3)
## Platinum Nanocrystals Boost Catalytic Activity For Fuel Oxidation, Hydrogen Production http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070503140647.htm
Science Daily A research team composed of electrochemists and materials scientists from two continents has produced a new form of the industrially-important metal platinum: 24-facet nanocrystals whose catalytic activity per unit area can be as much as four times higher than existing commercial platinum catalysts.
(A) Low-magnification SEM image of a platinum tetrahexahedral nanocrystal and its geometrical model. (B) High-resolution transmission electron microscopy image recorded from a platinum tetrahexahedral nanocrystal to reveal surface atomic steps in the areas made of (210) and (310) sub-facets. (Credit: Zhong Lin Wang)
The new platinum nanocrystals, whose “tetrahexahedral” structure had not previously been reported in the metal, could improve the efficiency of chemical processes such as those used to catalyze fuel oxidation and produce hydrogen for fuel cells.
“If we are going to have a hydrogen economy, we will need better catalysts,” said Zhong Lin Wang, a Regents Professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. “This new shape for platinum catalyst nanoparticles greatly improves their activity. This work also demonstrates a new method for producing metallic nanocrystals with high-energy surfaces.”
The new nanocrystals, produced electrochemically from platinum nanospheres on a carbon substrate, remain stable at high temperatures. Their sizes can be controlled by varying the number of cycles of “square wave” electrical potential applied to them.
“This electrochemical technique is vital to producing such tetrahexahedral platinum nanocrystals,” said Shi-Gang Sun, an Eminent Professor in the College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at the Xiamen University in China. “The technique used to produce the new platinum nanostructures may also have applications to other catalytic metals.”
The research was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China, Special Funds for Major State Basic Research Project of China and the U.S. National Science Foundation. Details will be reported in the May 4 issue of the journal Science.
Platinum plays a vital role as a catalyst for many important reactions, used in industrial chemical processing, in motor vehicle catalytic converters that reduce exhaust pollution, in fuel cells and in sensors. Commercially available platinum nanocrystals — which exist as cubes, tetrahedra and octahedra — have what are termed “low-index” facets, characterized by the numbers {100} or {111}. Because of their higher catalytic activity, “high-index” surfaces would be preferable — but until now, platinum nanocrystals with such surfaces have never been synthesized — and therefore have not been available for industrial use.
The nanocrystals produced by the U.S.-Chinese team have high energy surfaces that include numerous “dangling bonds” and “atomic steps” that facilitate chemical reactions. These structures, characterized by {210}, {730} or {520} facets, remain stable at high temperatures — up to 800 degrees Celsius in testing done so far. That stability will allow them to be recycled and re-used in catalytic reactions, Wang said.
Though the process must still be fine-tuned, the researchers have learned to control the size of the particles by varying the processing conditions. They are able to control the size such that only 4.5 percent of the nanocrystals produced are larger or smaller than the target size.
“In nanoparticle research, two things are important: size control and shape control,” said Wang. “From a purity point of view, we have been able to obtain a high yield of nanocrystals whose shape was a real surprise.”
Depending on conditions, the new nanocrystals can be as much as four times more catalytically active per unit area than existing commercial catalysts. But since the new structures tested are more than 20 times larger than existing platinum catalysts, they require more of the metal — and hence are less active per unit weight.
“We need to find a way to make these nanocrystals smaller while preserving the shape,” Wang noted. “If we can reduce the size through better control of processing conditions, we will have a catalytic system that would allow production of hydrogen with greater efficiency.”
Production of the new crystals begins with polycrystalline platinum spheres about 750 nanometers in diameter that are electrodeposited onto a substrate of amorphous — also known as “glassy” — carbon. Placed in an electrochemical cell with ascorbic acid and sulfuric acid, the spheres are then subjected to “square wave” potential that alternates between positive and negative potentials at a rate of 10 to 20 Hertz.
The electrochemical oxidation-reduction reaction converts the spheres to smaller nanocrystals over a period of time ranging from 10 to 60 minutes. The role of the carbon substrate isn’t fully understood, but it somehow enhances the uniformity of the nanocrystals.
“The key to producing this shape is to tune the voltage and the time period under which it is applied,” Sun noted. “By changing the experimental conditions, we can control the size with a high level of uniformity.”
Scanning electron microscopy shows that the sizes average 81 nanometers in diameter, with the smallest just 20 nanometers. The microscopy also found that the structures were composed of single crystals with no dislocations.
“Not only do we have a beautiful shape — which was observed for the first time in this research — but we also have a very valuable catalyst,” Sun added. “And because these nanocrystals are stable, the shape is preserved after the catalytic reaction, which will allow us to use the same nanocrystals over and over again.”
In addition to Sun and Wang, the research team included Na Tian and Zhi-You Zhou from the College of Chemistry and Engineering at Xiamen University in China and Yong Ding from the School of Materials Science and Engineering at Georgia Tech in the United States.
Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Georgia Institute of Technology.
(to link the article above use: #PNC)
## Research Demystifies Quantum Properties Of Exotic Materials http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/12/041219194949.htm
Science Daily – December 23, 2004 Modern materials science has been a boon for electronics, providing average consumers with palm-sized computers that would have filled a room just a few years ago for instance. But the push to create materials with radically new electronic properties has also produced a host of experimental results that textbook theories simply cannot explain.
In the Dec. 16 issue of Nature magazine, a team of physicists from Rice University, Rutgers University and the Max-Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids in Dresden, Germany, offers a new explanation of the way quantum effects could create some of the strange electronic properties that have been observed in the important class of “heavy fermion” materials. “Our findings represent a clear-cut advance in the understanding of the electron’s organizing principle in quantum-critical matters,” said theoretical physist Qimiao Si, a paper co-author and professor of physics and astronomy at Rice. “The work could be important to the physics of a broad range of materials, including high-temperature superconductors and carbon nanotubes. In addition, it provides new insight for the field of phase transformations of matter, which is of interest in physics, chemistry and other disciplines.”
The new research bolsters the growing body of theoretical and experimental work in a new subfield of condensed matter physics known as “correlated electron physics,” a discipline that’s grown up in the past decade with the aim of understanding all the electronic processes governing both natural and man-made materials. The impetus for correlated electron physics is the fact that the standard theory of metals cannot explain the electronic workings of materials that contain “correlated,” or strongly interacting electrons. Correlated systems include radioactive metals, such as plutonium, and compounds based on so-called rare earth elements and transition metals, such as cerium, ytterbium and copper. All strongly correlated materials contain electrons whose influence on one another is so pronounced that they cannot be explained by theoretical description of the independent electrons themselves but instead require an understanding of their dynamic interaction.
Electrons are a type of quantum particle called a “fermion.” Like all quantum particles, electrons can be considered both a particle and a wave, and quantum mechanics dictates that electron waves possess a definite momentum and that no two electrons can have the same momentum. What follows is the notion of “Fermi volume,” a volume in the momentum-space made up of all the combined momenta of all the electrons in a wire, a resistor or another solid-state structure.
In this week’s findings, Si, Rutgers theoretical physicist Piers Coleman, and the Dresden group of experimental physicists led by Frank Steglich, show that the Fermi volume in materials with strongly correlated electrons changes its size abruptly at a “quantum critical point.” A quantum critical point develops in a material at absolute zero (minus 459 degrees Fahrenheit). “Quantum critical points are of great current interest because of their ability to reach up from absolute zero and create a new state of matter called ‘quantum critical matter,'” said Coleman, professor of physics and astronomy at Rutgers and a member of the university’s Center for Materials Theory. “This may provide a route to many new classes of material.”
The latest research offers the most significant body of experimental evidence aimed at answering the theoretical questions about changes in Fermi volume in quantum critical matters. Si, Coleman and Steglich, director at the Max-Planck Institute in Dresden, teamed with Max-Planck experimentalists Silke Paschen, an associate professor of physics, Thomas Lühmann and Steffen Wirth, to measure something called “the Hall effect.” The experiment included an ingenious setup designed to separate the various roles played by magnetic fields. Other members of the Max-Planck group are Octavio Trovarelli and Christoph Geibel, who synthesized extremely high-quality samples, as well as Philipp Gegenwart, who performed resistivity measurements necessary to analyze the Hall-effect data. The theoretical study of quantum criticality is still in flux. Critical points governed by classical physics have been known for fifty years, and the conventional wisdom thinks of their quantum mechanical cousins as a kind of classical phase transition in higher dimensions. This traditional way of thinking has held sway in metal physics for the past half century, but it would predict a smooth evolution of the Fermi volume.
“Our experimental observation points toward a complete breakdown of the traditional theory,” said Paschen. Instead, the results are more consistent with a local quantum critical point, a new class of quantum phase transition advanced by Si and colleagues in Nature in 2001. Another possible explanation favored by Coleman and colleagues is that electrons are actually breaking apart inside the quantum critical matter a phenomenon known as spin-charge separation.
“This is the most direct evidence for a collapse of a Fermi volume in any quantum critical matter,” says Steglich. “We expect this new insight to have broad implications for other strongly correlated electron systems.” Taken together, the experimental and theoretical works point toward fluctuations of the Fermi surface (the enclosure of the Fermi volume) as being responsible for the exotic physical properties of quantum critical matter.
The real-world effect of electron correlations on material properties can be profound. The effects are widely believed to be a key element behind the mechanism of high-temperature superconductivity, and a better understanding of electron correlations may answer questions arising from a host of other mysterious experimental observations such as: Why do the mobile electrons in some extremely cold exotic metals behave as if their masses were a thousand times that of free electrons in simple metals? Why do some strongly correlated materials display a very large thermoelectric response? Why do others display “colossal magnetoresistance,” or extreme sensitivity to magnetic changes?
The Rice research was supported by the National Science Foundation, the Robert A. Welch Foundation and the Texas Center for Superconductivity and Advanced Materials at the University of Houston. The Rutgers’ research was supported by the National Science Foundation. The Max-Planck Institute research was supported by the Fonds der Chemischen Industrie.
Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Rice University.
(to link the article above use: #RDQP)
## 08/22/06, Nanotechnology substance has solid crystal structure even though it’s a liquid http://www.whatsnextnetwork.com/
A substance used in nanotechnology contains unusual structures at its surface, a team of researchers led by Oleg Shpyrko, Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow, has learned. The research results, developed at Argonne’s Center for Nanoscale Materials, were published in the journal Science.
The substance in question is a gold-silicon eutectic alloy, 82% gold and 18% silicon. The term eutectic means that the combination melts at a temperature lower than that of the melting temperature of either of its components. In most cases, the difference between the melting point of a eutectic alloy and those of its pure components is about 100°C; the gold-silicon eutectic alloy melts at about 1,000°C lower than either of its components, at 360°C (680°F).
But that’s not the only unusual thing about the gold-silicon eutectic alloy. In a crystalline solid, atoms are arranged in an orderly, periodic fashion, and in a liquid, arrangements of atoms are disordered. It’s been known for about 10 years that many metallic liquids show two or three distinct atomic layers near the surface, and usually there is no crystalline-like order within these layers. However, Shpyrko and his colleagues found that the gold-silicon eutectic alloy has seven or eight layers near its surface. In trying to understand this unexpected development, they found also that the top-most surface layer includes a crystal-like structure, similar to that normally found only in solid substances.
Understanding characteristics of novel surface phases like this surface-frozen monolayer is important for the growing realm of nanotechnology, in which the basic unit of measurement is a billionth of a meter.
By the time you reduce the size of an object or device down to one nanometer, practically everything is surfaces and interfaces, Shpyrko said. We need to understand what the new laws of physics and chemistry that govern the surface structures are.
Gold and silicon are especially important to understand because they are used in computer technology. Gold is an oxide-resistant noble metal that is easily shaped into tiny computer chip interconnects, and silicon is the principal component of most semiconductor devices.
If you think about it, you have gold and silicon in contact with each other in about every electronic device, Shpyrko said.
Shpyrko began the research as a doctoral student at Harvard University and finished it at Argonne. He used Argonne’s Advanced Photon Source, which provides the most brilliant X-ray beams available in the Western Hemisphere, to perform several tests on the material: X-ray specular reflectivity, which provides information about atomic structure normal to the surface; X-ray grazing incidence diffraction, which provides information about in-plane structure; X-ray diffuse scattering, which provides information about waves and other dynamics at the surface; and X-ray crystal truncation rod, which measures thickness and structure of the crystalline surface layer.
(to link the article above use: #GSLC)