Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Superatoms from NiO2

morganism - 27-2-2015 at 16:01

Interesting and appears to be easy to make from the salt.

http://www.researchsea.com/html/article.php/aid/8605/cid/1/r...

tl;dr
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150226122109.ht...



This may also be a partial answer to how the nickle in the Rossi-type reactors can still remain effective after they have become melted.

j_sum1 - 27-2-2015 at 17:51

There is something that I don't understand here. How are these "superatoms" different from a stable molecule? In this case, how are the nickel and oxygens bonded? What prevents the bonds from breaking in the normal manner of chemical reactions? And why would these be legitimately considered analogous to the elements of the periodic table in the realm of nanotechnology?

morganism - 1-3-2015 at 13:47

Not sure, but this may be another "edge" effect, that we find in the 2d materials, like graphene and moly.

Will be interesting to keep an eye out for more experimental results, since it is so easy to produce.

Fulmen - 1-3-2015 at 14:09

The way I understand it is that atom clusters can share electrons in what behaves like shared orbitals. This causes the clusters to behave somewhat like an individual superatom. Interesting indeed.