Central Europe Chemistry

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The destruction of concrete and mortar in environments rich in sulphates and carbonates is termed sulphate attack: in terms of topical chemical changes, it is attributed to thaumasite1 added to ettringite. The scope of sulphate ingress (as opposed to durability) into concrete has been recorded based on a decrease of flexural strength, changes in length, and observation. Phase changes studies have confirmed beyond doubt the relevance and role of thaumasite and thaumasite sulphate attack (TSA) to concrete, but the latter must not be overestimated. Thus, the amount of thaumasite in destructed concrete bodies, as well as quantification of the TSA

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You hold in your hands a special issue of Nachrichten aus der Chemie, the monthly magazine for members of the Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker (GDCh), the German Chemical Society. In this issue we focus on Central Europe, with contributions authored by colleagues from Hungary, Slovenia and Slovakia. It is being distributed to the members of the GDCh and the Austrian Chemical Society (GÖCH) as well as to the members of the chemical societies in the Czech and Slovak Republics, Slovenia and Hungary. It thus reaches almost 40,000 chemists. With this special publication we want to emphasise and celebrate the importance of the relationship between t

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Porous materials with pore diameters of a few tenths of a nanometre (microporous materials) and with pore diameters between a few nanometres and a few tens of nanometres (mesoporous materials) have a very wide range of applications. Their particularly important properties are large surface areas, adsorption capacities, and shape selectivity for molecules. A well-known and immensely exploited class of microporous materials are zeolites. These are aluminosilicate materials built of AlO4 and SiO4 tetrahedra, which are connected through common oxygen vertices into many different porous structures.1 Zeolites are extensively used as catalysts in oi

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Red mud is the by-product of the Bayer-processing of bauxites, one of the oldest large-scale industries in the world. In 1892 Karl Joseph Bayer, an Austrian chemist, applied for a patent on the digestion of bauxite, an aluminium-containing ore, by means of a concentrated sodium hydroxide solution employed at elevated temperature and pressure, which enables dissolution of the aluminium content and its separation from other bauxite components. From the caustic solution the dissolved aluminium hydroxide can be precipitated by dilution. Then the hydroxide is subjected to calcinations to form alumina, from which metallic aluminium is produced by e

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Ulrich Schubert, Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the Materials Chemistry Institute of the Vienna University of Technology, is Euchems president elect. Nachrichten aus der Chemie asked him about his priorities and aims. Nachrichten aus der Chemie: In a few months you will be president of Euchems: Is this a pleasure or a burden? Ulrich Schubert: It will probably end up as a mixture of both. But it was gratifying and a great honour to be asked to be a candidate in the first place, and then actually to be chosen. Will the office end up being burdensome? The word burden has a bad aftertaste and I don't believe I could ever feel that way about