Author: Kevin Dickinson / Source: Big Think
- X-ray crystallography allows scientists to accurately map molecular structures, but the process is slow thanks to the need to grow sufficiently sized crystals.
- Two independent research teams have discovered a way to use electron diffraction to accurately map molecular structures with incredibly small samples.
- The results of their research have been published in both Angwandte Chemie and ChemRxiv.
People tend to think of x-rays, if they think of them at all, as a quick-and-easy way to snapshot hidden worlds. You sit back, the dentist throws a lead-heavy vest on you, and the x-rays go to work. Voila! You have an atomic rendering of your molar. Chemists use x-rays to map out molecular structures, but in the microscopic world, x-rays prove less than the insta-images we think they are. They aren’t even Polaroid. They are more ye olde portait, taking weeks or even months to completely map out a single crystal structure.
But that’s about to change. Two independent research teams have found a way to use electrons to map crystal structures in mere minutes, significantly reducing the wait time. Last month, the teams published their work in Angewandte Chemie and ChemRxiv*. “I haven’t been this excited about a finding in chemistry in a long time,” Donna Huryn, an organic and medicinal chemist at the University of Pittsburgh, told Science News. “It’s going to change the way everybody works.”
Molecular paint by numbers
X-ray crystallography of a protein crystal. Image source: CSIRO
According to the Angewandte Chemie paper, chemists publish about 50,000 crystal structures a year. The majority of these are created using x-ray crystallography (also known as x-ray diffraction). During this process x-rays are shot at a crystal structure and bend, or diffract, when striking it. By measuring how the x-rays diffract off the crystal, chemists can map out its structure to determine its makeup and various characteristics. This allows chemists to determine the compositions of the substances they work with.
However,…
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