Chemists at Duke University have discovered a way to speed up complex chemical reactions using palladium, potentially creating a means to develop new polymers that can heal themselves after tearing.

Using an atomic force microscope (AFM) tip the students were able to exert tiny tugs on a molecular complex made of pyridine and the pgm palladium.

"We probed a reaction in which a bond was being made and a bond was being broken by pulling on the bond being broken with an atomic force microscope," explained assistant Duke chemistry professor Stephen Craig.

"As a bond breaks, it stretches," he said. "The distance between the atoms gets further and further. And we could infer from the behaviour of this experiment that the rate of the reaction speeded up."

He said that his group's findings are compatible with some central ideas about how energy is exchanged in chemical reactions, and could lead to "a more sophisticated understanding of the way reactions happen at their most fundamental levels".

Professor Craig also said that further studies into the order and consequences of chemical bond-breaking could support the discovery of new materials.

"Someone might try to design certain types of molecules that would respond to mechanical stresses by breaking in a way that's desirable," he explained.

The group's research could aid studies on self-healing polymers, molecules in the early stages of development that could release chemicals to repair tears and cracks.


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