杏吧原创

A MOLECULAR 鈥渟oftball鈥� with room for two smaller molecules inside has been
developed to speed up reactions.

Julius Rebek and his colleagues at the Scripps Research Institute in La
Jolla, California, made the complex from two curved molecules stitched together
with hydrogen bonds, like two halves of a softball.

The softball opens and closes once every millisecond, allowing two smaller
鈥済uests鈥� to enter its hollow interior. These are 10 times as likely to react
when held together inside the softball (Journal of the American Chemical
Society, vol 120, p 7389).

The starting molecules fit inside the softball better before they fuse, says
Rebek, so the ball 鈥渟pits out鈥� the product. Then the whole process begins
again.