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Materials

Chemistry In Pictures

Chemistry in Pictures: PAH lava lamp

by Brianna Barbu
April 4, 2024

 

A video of blue fluroescent material swirling around in a conical reactiion vessel, creating a lava lamp effect.
Credit: Sarah Lutz

Perhaps it’s the conical shape of the vessel, or the gentle blue glow emitted by the material within, or the way the small flecks of solid drift about as they precipitate out of solution. Either way, this video is giving serious lava lamp vibes. The footage was captured by Sarah Lutz, a former intern in Holger Helten’s group at the University of Wuerzburg. Research in the Helten group focuses on organic-inorganic hybrid materials. The material in the video is a boron–nitrogen-doped polycyclic aromatic compound, or BN-PAH. These molecules have unique fluorescent properties that make them intriguing for a range of potential applications, including chromophores for labeling nucleosides that can be incorporated into DNA as probes. Lutz’s graduate student mentor Johannes Chorbacher posted the video on social media last fall.

Credit: Sarah Lutz. Follow the Helten group on X at @HeltenGroupJMU

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