The music of Chemical reactions

[Yann Serim]

Hi Everyone,

I need a chemist/biologist's help for my project.

To analyze the state of a reaction, chemists most often use their sense of vision and smell. What if each reaction could have a distinct sound/melody such that chemists would associate a sound to reactions? This would may allow them to grasp key characteristics from it such as:

- When is the reaction finished.

- What is the most reactive phase of the reaction.

- Did anything go wrong during the reaction.

What if the music generated by the reactions actually sounded good (some artists might like this one...)?

I plan to make a simple electronic circuit with a microcontroller connected to a speaker and sensors. The sensors would pickup specific data about the reaction (temperature, IR frequency emitted, color, transparency, disruption of magnetic field...) and feed the information to the controller. The controller would process the data and create sounds per a predetermined musical scheme dependent on the data (e.g. map the IR spectrum to the audible frequency spectrum).

I am an electrical engineer, so I am not a specialist in chemistry.

My issue: 

*What kind of data would be interesting to monitor in general reactions?

Feel free to tell me what you think about this mini-project and give me diverse suggestions!!!

I found a similar project online. You can read more about it in here:

http://prospect.rsc.org/blogs/cw/2014/06/04/the-music-of-molecules/

[Nathan McCorkle]

Josiah (posts here on the list) made something along those lines:
http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/5/4694324/biophysicist-uses-proteins-to-create-chromochord

Maybe you could even do something to detect the phonons emitted during
chemical reactions, using a piezo transducer or a calorimeter maybe?

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--
-Nathan

[Jeff Backstrom]

>*What kind of data would be interesting to monitor in general reactions?

Spectral absorption. For example, in a colorimetric reaction (turns from, say, blue to green) you would change absorption at specific wavelengths. In a pH-dependent reaction, you could use an indicator, and translate that pH change into a color change, and in turn that color change into pitch.

Similarly, outside the visible spectrum, there are reactions that would express changes in the ultraviolet spectrum, as well as near infrared. The near infrared spectrophotometer (NIR) has a number of interferences, including water and carbon dioxide. Similarly, all these reactions have limitations, depending upon the solvent used, and the type of container (different plastics and glass will absorb at different wavelengths, 'obscuring' part of your observations).

You could also look at the concentration of a reactant, versus that of a product. So, for example, look at the concentration of hydrogen peroxide as you drop in a tiny bit of catalase. Not sure what sensors are out there for hydrogen peroxide, maybe somebody makes one. Ditto with ion specific electrodes (ISE), where you could put into motion a precipitation reaction, and examine the concentration of an ion that ends up as part of an insoluble precipitate.

"Clock" reactions would be particularly interesting if you could figure out a way to look at those. Many of these are fussy, and some are intermittent at best.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_clock

You could look at delta T in endothermic or exothermic reactions.

You could monitor light production from various photochemical reactions.

You could look at the forward progress of various reactions in which there is a limiting reagent. For example, oxidation in an atmosphere where the oxidizer (typically the oxygen found in air, but not always) is limited. Aluminum would be interesting for that- see aluminum-air battery.

You could look at redox potential; the addition of a reducing agent (sodium thiosulfate) to a solution of sodium hypochlorite (bleach).

All sorts of stuff.

On Wed, Mar 18, 2015 at 7:35 PM, Yann Serim <noyan...@gmail.com> wrote:

--

[Jonathan Cline]

It was done before in the 80's and 90's.  Do some homework, RTFM. 

It will not, and never will, "sound good."
RTFM fractal music.

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[Nathan McCorkle]

On Mon, Mar 23, 2015 at 7:30 PM, Jonathan Cline <jnc...@gmail.com> wrote:
> It will not, and never will, "sound good."

That's a pretty large judgement call... have you listened to all the
molecules and reactions to so assuredly state that?

[Jonathan Cline]

Yes.
Thanks for asking.

## Jonathan Cline
## jcl...@ieee.org
## Mobile: +1-805-617-0223
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[Nathan McCorkle]

On Mon, Mar 23, 2015 at 7:41 PM, Jonathan Cline <jcl...@ieee.org> wrote:
> Yes.
> Thanks for asking.

Well at least share the best of the worst!

[Jonathan Cline]

They're in Prince's vault. The NSA has the entire data set, of course.

For what it's worth the circuit calls for a
voltage-controlled-oscillator. This can be done with 1980s era analog
IC electronics, very cheap and common, and no software. Connect each
sensor (for example, photodetector) to the VCO IC (such as LM555 wired
for it, or more specific model) through a simple transistor buffer, and
send the output to a tabletop audio mixer to get stereo out's. Done.
An easier method would be to use a 300 baud modem to transmit the xray
crystallography animated video and just record that modem audio, play
back use a notch filter on the mixing console to get rid of the carrier,
ta da, the music of chemical reactions. This is like a quarter-mil
kickstarter waiting to happen, peoples, right up there with the robot
bartender.

The original poster should try doing some actual rtfm on usenet of
1980's comp.sci or even Popular Science back issues for fubar's sake.

## Jonathan Cline
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