The job of chemists is not easy. These professionals have to deal with tiny parts of chemical elements, such as their atoms, and you already know from chemistry lessons that they are one of the basic units of matter.
Therefore, the calculations carried out by chemistry professionals must be very precise, otherwise they will not give the desired result.
We don’t always realize it, but this research is carried out daily by many companies, after all, various solutions that we use in our daily lives derive from chemical reactions.
To give you an idea, the Brazilian chemical industry generates around R$160 billion per year and alone represents 10% of our country’s GDP, according to Abiquim data. Therefore, errors in the calculations of these companies can represent considerable losses.
The problem is that Australian researchers have released interesting news to the professionals of this market, discovering that for years an important calculation was being carried out incorrectly.
Compromise calculation
In 2018, a team of Australian chemists were trying to find a solution for the mining industry. The objective was to reduce mercury emissions in the production of alumina, a material used as an abrasive by industry.
The professionals carried out a series of calculations and all considered what the scientific literature had already shown to be true. It turns out that they discovered that there was a serious mistake in this whole story: the calculations considered the presence of a specific ion, sulfide (stwo-) in its aqueous form (aq), i.e. dissolved in water.
It turns out that researchers this year failed to find this ion in light beam tests. In fact, they discovered that this ion does not exist as the chemical literature had claimed it did.
This means that for decades many calculations have been carried out incorrectly, because something was considered to exist that never existed – and this discovery managed to change the way chemists calculate certain formulas in the industry.
“A simple chemical problem that defies the best that modern instrumentation can offer is rare today. A widespread, ongoing misadventure in science is even rarer. However, both have occurred during the supposed existence of chemical species stwo– (aq),” Australian professor Dr. Darren Rowland, from UWA’s Faculty of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences, said in a statement.
According to him, simple calculations have been performed incorrectly for at least 30 years. The Australian study was published in the scientific journal Chemical communications.
Source: Terra
Rose James is a Gossipify movie and series reviewer known for her in-depth analysis and unique perspective on the latest releases. With a background in film studies, she provides engaging and informative reviews, and keeps readers up to date with industry trends and emerging talents.
