The discovery of Teflon, a polymer chemically known as polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), was sheer coincidence, and yet a revolutionary one. The man behind the discovery was an American chemist named Dr Roy J. Plunkett (1910–1994), who was then working for DuPont, an American chemical company. In the year 1938, Dr Plunkett was conducting a coolant gas…
Dmitri Mendeleev was not a prophet in Russia because the Tsar did not like his liberal politics. He was not elected to the Russian Academy of Sciences, but in the rest of the world his name was magic.
Mercury or quick-silver is a metal which is liquid. It has a very low melting point at minus 38.83 degrees celsius. It means that if the temperature falls below minus 38.83 degrees celsius, it will turn into solid. Under the conditions of room temperature, mercury is in the liquid state.
Linus Pauling was a chemist who contributed immensely to the knowledge of chemistry and biological molecules. For his research on the chemical bonds and their application to find out the structure of complex molecules, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1954. Since 1946, Pauling had ceaselessly championed against the nuclear tests and all forms…
Alkali metals are chemical elements that are highly reactive with oxygen in the air and water. The alkali metals are sodium, potassium, rubidium cesium, and francium. When any of these metals is dropped in water, an explosion takes place with the generation of heat. The alkali metal breaks water into its constituents, hydrogen and hydroxyl…
