Some complex chemical work at UC may some day lead to better smells around your house.
The research by Dr. Anna Gudmundsdottir, UC chemistry professor, revolves around radicals, which are atoms, molecules or ions that are trying to change into something else. They have a lifetime of only fractions of seconds, which usually occurs during other chemical reactions.
Gudmundsdottir focuses on triplet nitrenes. They are somewhat more stable than normal radicals, and can be turned into organic magnets that can trap a fragrance and slowly release it over time. While this kind of idea has been applied to heat-released fragrance, think dryer sheets, this may well be the first time light will be used as a trigger to release fragrance.
“When you mop a floor, it only smells clean for a few minutes,” Gudmundsdottir says. “If this research was applied, a cleaning solution could slowly release once contacted by light and release a pleasant fragrance over an extended period of time.”
The fragrance will be kept from full release by photoprotectant, which is created by the nitrenes. They act as a cap that is slowly taken away when contacted by photons. Gudmundsdottir is now working on how to time that release and control how much fragrance is released each time photons make contact.
The research may also play a part in medicine. If a drug is tethered to the nitrenes, then put in a patient’s veins, it can then be targeted with light and released exactly where, and only where, it needs to go.
“Light is one of the few things you can actually control in space,” Gudmundsdottir says. “You can’t control where you have the fragrance or drug molecules, but you can pinpoint where you penetrate with light. That is why it is so useful.”
By
Evan Wallis
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