Latest news with #Bunsen
The Hindu
09-05-2025
- Science
- The Hindu
Three men in a lab (to say nothing of an element)
Bunsen, the burner German chemist Robert Bunsen was born on March 30, 1811 in Gottingen. His father taught modern languages at the University of Gottingen and Bunsen too went on to earn his doctorate there. Before he returned to this place as a lecturer, he travelled across Europe for three years. He also taught at the Universities of Marburg and Breslau, but it was as a professor at Heidelberg, where he taught from 1852 until his death in 1899, that he is best associated with. Bunsen never married, instead choosing to live for his students and his laboratory, setting up an excellent lab and remaining popular with his pupils throughout. Bunsen was first drawn towards organic chemistry and he was able to produce what remains one of the most effective antidotes for arsenic poisoning – iron oxide hydrate. Bunsen, however, lost one of his eyes when working with cacodyl cyanide, an arsenic compound, forcing him to move to other disciplines. In case you feel familiar with the name Bunsen, that's because you might have encountered the Bunsen burner in your chemistry labs. Along with his laboratory assistant Peter Desaga, he built the device that now bears his name in 1855. Part of chemistry labs across the world, Bunsen burners enabled its inventor to study emission spectra from heated elements. He put it to great effect and showcased the power of spectroscopy as a tool for scientific research. Kirchhoff's key contributions Born on March 12, 1824 – nearly 13 years after Bunsen – in Konigsberg, Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia), Gustav Robert Kirchhoff is a German chemist, mathematician, and physicist. He married the daughter of his mathematics professor and the couple moved to Berlin soon after their wedding. It was at the University of Breslau, where he'd become a professor at the young age of 26, that Kirchhoff first encountered Bunsen. The duo would go on to do great things together, but Kirchhoff has plenty of claims to fame on his own. Both Kirchhoff's laws of electrical circuits and Kirchhoff's laws of thermodynamics are, unsurprisingly, named after him in his honour. He made fundamental contributions in helping understand the emission of black-body radiation by heated objects, electrical circuits, and spectroscopy. The term 'black body,' in fact, was coined by Kirchhoff in 1860, the same year he discovered caesium with Bunsen. He also used emission spectra to study the sky and identified 30 elements in the sun. Bunsen-Kirchhoff partnership In 1854, Bunsen convinced Kirchhoff to move to Heidelberg in order to facilitate their collaboration further. They were working on research to try and prove that all pure elements have a distinct spectrum that they emit. While work in this field was already on for nearly a century, if not more, such studies lacked the systemic approach and careful examination that this duo wanted to bring to the table. Partnering for this work in 1859, Bunsen suggested using filters to block colours like the yellow of sodium compounds. He believed that such an arrangement would facilitate the detection of less intense colours that are also emitted by other elements. Kirchhoff, meanwhile, wanted to adapt a method that a couple of others – English mathematician and astronomer John Frederick William Herschel, and English scientist, inventor, and photography pioneer William Henry Fox Talbot – had employed a few decades earlier. He wanted to improve Bunsen's technique by adapting the Herschel/Talbot method wherein light was passed through a prism. Bunsen and Kirchhoff effectively came up with their version of the spectroscope. In 1860, the duo analysed the spectral lines of spring water from Durkheim. Known to be rich in lithium compounds, Bunsen noticed something different in the spectra. Apart from the expected spectral lines from sodium, lithium, and potassium, Bunsen also identified a new sky-blue doublet that he hadn't seen before. He named the new element caesium, naming it after the Latin word for 'sky blue.' The duo made their discovery public by announcing it on May 10, 1860. Having managed to get just 2 mg of caesium chloride from 10 litres of spa water, Bunsen commissioned a nearby chemical factory to evaporate 12,000 gallons of spring water in order to isolate caesium and study its properties. Even though he failed to obtain pure caesium, he was able to establish the relative atomic mass of the element as 128.4 (we know that 132.9 is the value now). Bunsen and Krichhoff went on to observe the presence of another alkali metal in spa water by observing dark red in the spectral lines. They named this element rubidium, again from the Latin for 'dark red.' While the duo were successful in isolating rubidium, they couldn't replicate the success in the case of caesium. Setterberg isolates caesium The credit for first isolating caesium goes to Swedish chemist Carl Theodor Setterberg. Born in 1853 in Skaraborg, Sweden, Setterberg set about living a lifetime as an industrial chemist. When doing research for his PhD, August Kekule – his supervisor and professor of chemistry at the University of Bonn – tasked him with isolating caesium. Following the extraction of lithium from lepidolite, an ore of the mica group, there's a lot of waste material that remains. Setterberg decided to use this as his starting point for isolating caesium. The waste ore was converted into a mixture of potash alum, along with those of rubidium and caesium. With the help of fractional crystallisation, Setterberg was sure he could separate the alum salts. This is exactly what happened as Setterberg started off with around 350 kg of the waste ore, before finishing with 10 kg of a caesium compound. This was more than Bunsen ever had, allowing Setterberg to try different techniques to isolate caesium. After a failed experiment when he tried the carbon reduction method that Bunsen had successfully used to obtain rubidium, Setterberg switched to electrolysis. Setterberg found that cyanide-based mixtures of caesium salts were ideal for his purpose as he successfully isolated the element in 1882. He went on to describe some of its properties in the same year, giving its melting point and density. Setterberg's contribution, however, is often missed out when talking about the discovery of caesium. The world of science can feel strange to many onlookers to the extent of seeming incongruous on occasions. The discovery of caesium is a case in point. Wherein Setterberg's isolation is often relegated to a footnote in the discovery story, the opposite rings true in the case of fluorine. Even though Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele made significant contributions to the understanding of fluorine in the 18th Century, it is French chemist Henri Moissan, who first isolated the element over 100 years later in 1886, who is always immediately associated with it. Caesium facts A chemical element with symbol Cs and atomic number 55. It is highly reactive and is a soft, silvery-gold alkali metal. A liquid just above room temperature, caesium has a melting point of 28.4 °C. The current definition of a second is based on caesium. The most famous use of caesium is in the atomic clock.
Yahoo
22-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Celanese Corporation (CE): Among Stocks Insiders Were Piling Into Recently
We recently published a list of . In this article, we are going to take a look at where Celanese Corporation (NYSE:CE) stands against other stocks insiders were piling into recently. After a turbulent week, stocks began recovering on Monday, with all three major indexes posting gains. The broader market index rose 0.64%, blue-chip stocks gained 0.85%, and the NASDAQ Composite, still in correction territory, closed 0.31% higher. Early Tuesday, stocks began to decline again as investors focused on the Federal Reserve's two-day policy meeting starting today. The key announcement for traders will come Wednesday when the Fed announces its interest rate decision, followed by a press conference with Fed Chair Jerome Powell. Since September, the Fed has cut interest rates three times and still, the broader market entered a correction. Despite uncertainty from President Trump's shifting tariff policies and geopolitical strategies, some analysts remain optimistic about AI's future. 'We retain our view that there is more to go in stocks, and we keep our conviction in the long-term opportunities in stocks linked to both the artificial intelligence and power and resources transformational innovations,' UBS chief investment office said in a note Monday, according to CNBC. Amid turbulence and uncertainty on Wall Street, looking at recent insider trades can provide valuable insights, as executives often have a deeper understanding of their companies. For example, when a CEO or CFO buys company stock, it may indicate strong confidence in the business's future. However, insider selling doesn't always signal a lack of confidence. It could be due to personal financial needs or a desire to diversify investments. These sales are often made through pre-arranged plans, like 10b5-1 plans, to avoid any appearance of improper timing. While insider activity can be informative, it's important to consider it alongside the company's financial health, market trends, and industry developments. We used Insider Monkey's insider trading stock screener to analyze recent trading activities in several popular stocks. For each stock, we noted the number of insiders who recently acquired shares and the company's market capitalization. Our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds, focusing on insider trading and stock picks from hedge fund investor newsletters and conferences. Our quarterly newsletter's strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (). A laboratory full of vials, tubes and Bunsen burners, with a scientist in the center examining a chemical. Number of Insiders Buying: 4 Market Capitalization: $6.26 billion Celanese Corporation (NYSE:CE) is a chemicals company serving industrial customers. Formerly known as Hoechst Celanese, it is a leading global producer of acetic acid and vinyl acetate monomer. The Irving, Texas-based company operates 25 production plants and six research centers across 11 countries, mainly in North America, Europe, and Asia. For the full-year 2024, Celanese (NYSE:CE) reported a U.S. GAAP diluted loss per share of $13.86 and an adjusted earnings per share of $8.37. The company generated $10.3 billion in net sales, a 6% decline from the previous year. In March, four insiders purchased a total of around $907,468 worth of Celanese shares at an average price of $54.27. At the moment, the stock trades at $57.37 per share, having dropped 17.11% year-to-date, and 64.45% over the past 12 months. According to MarketBeat, 16 analysts have given Celanese (NYSE:CE) a 'Hold' rating, with a price target of $72.18. The average price target suggests an upside of 25.88% from the latest price. Overall, CE ranks 2nd on our list of stocks insiders were piling into recently. While we acknowledge the potential of CE, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than CE but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the . READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey. Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
13-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Woodruff Culinary Arts wins ninth straight state restaurant management competition
PEORIA, Ill. (WMBD) — They've brought home the trophy, and now it's time to celebrate, by serving a whole cafeteria. On Saturday, Woodruff Career and Technical Center won their ninth straight Restaurant Management Competition at the Illinois ProStart Invitational, which is held at the Sysco Warehouse in Des Plaines. Peoria High School junior Ava Simms is the general manager of the student-run restaurant Virescence. She addressed what kind of work goes into a competition like the ProStart. 'We all have to contribute in some way, shape or form,' Simms said. 'I helped with marketing, she helped with creating the floor plan, he helped with creating the menu. It's a team effort, honestly.' Teams are judged on their marketing, menu and floor plan, which are all on posters. Woodruff finished second in the culinary competition portion of the championship. Corbin Pratt, a Richwoods High School junior and the team's captain, shared what made him want to start cooking. 'I saw that we had a culinary program and I loved cooking with my parents and my grandparents, so I kind of wanted to just try it out and got into it,' he said. 'I got asked to do ProStart and I loved it.' With only an hour to cook, the teams are given two eight-foot tables along with two Bunsen burners. For the appetizer, they made a pounded-out tuna carpaccio. The entrée was a stuffed pork tenderloin, brown butter sage gnocchi and sautéed broccolini. For dessert, it was a zeppole over dark chocolate soil and a limoncello zabaglione. The teams were required to say their dishes in front of the judges, memorized. Pratt credits their success to their head chef, Chef Jetty, who started the program at Woodruff soon after it became a career and technical center. 'Our chef, we've got the best in the game,' Pratt said. Now, coming home off of the championship, they got to cook for a cafeteria of people at the Warrior Way Cafe, where the culinary students help prepare the lunch that goes from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. The lunch runs on some Thursdays from November through April. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
