“Perhaps it’s best to think of the science we are doing with these new compounds as being like inventing new words. From those come sentences, paragraphs, chapters, whole books, and even, eventually, Shakespeare. Small things can be the building blocks of larger ones down the line.”
—Kit Bowen, the E. Emmet Reid Professor in the departments of Chemistry and Materials Science at Johns Hopkins, who co-led a team that has synthesized a new class of aluminum-hydrogen compounds. The unique chemistry of the compounds could lead to the development of more powerful solid rocket fuel and may also, in time, be useful for hydrogen-powered vehicles or other energy applications. The team, which reported its findings in the Jan. 19 issue of Science, also included researchers from Virginia Commonwealth University, and Germany’s University of Konstanz and University of Karlsruhe.
