Reaction with Water Vapor Defines Surface Reconstruction and Membranolytic Activity of Quartz Milled in Different Molecular Environments.

Industrial processing of quartz (SiO) and quartz-containing materials produces toxic dust. Fracturing quartz crystals opens the Si‒O bond and produces highly reactive surface species which mainly react with molecules like water and oxygen. This surface-reconstruction process forms silanol (Si‒OH) on the quartz surface, which can damage biological membranes under specific configurations.

Short-Range Electronic Interactions between Vanadium and Molybdenum in Bimetallic SAPO-5 Catalysts Revealed by Hyperfine Spectroscopy.

Engineering two cooperative sites into a catalyst implies the onset of synergistic effects related to the existence of short-range electronic interactions between two metal components. However, these interactions and the relative structure-property correlations are often difficult to obtain. Here we show that hyperfine spectroscopy has the potential to reveal the presence of V-O-Mo linkages assessing the degree of spin density transfer from paramagnetic V species to proximal oxo-bridged Mo metal ions.