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|  File Name      : SOUNDKEM.ASC     |  Online Date     :  10/06/94          |
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From Science Digest - December 1982

Sound-Wave Chemistry

Cheaper drugs and detoxified poisons are among the POTENTIAL results of using
high-frequency SOUND WAVES to "clean" the surface of chemical reactants.

Ultrasonic waves have long been used to scrub such hard-to-wash objects as
large machinery and delicate jewelry.  Now, researchers at North Dakota State
University believe that they can also remove impurities from the surface of
solids used in chemical reactions.

According to chemist Philip Boudjouk, when ultrasonic waves pass through a
liquid reactant in which solid ones are suspended, bubbles form.  When these
burst, they release energy that smashes into the suspended molecules.  The
impact is thought to have a cleansing action - literally vibrating away the
surface coating.

In addition, Boudjouk explains, as ultrasonic waves travel through a
suspension, they momentarily produce pressures UP TO 147,000 pounds per square
inch and increase its temperature several thousand degrees in microscopic
regions, but NEVER MORE than 10 degrees OVERALL.

Yet these fleeting conditions are enough to SIGNIFICANTLY accelerate chemical
reactions.  "In some instances where it usually takes a whole day to make a
certain compound, it takes only a minute using ultrasound," he says.

Boudjouk claims that by using ultrasonic waves to synthesize compounds such as
drugs, many time-consuming purification steps can be avoided.  Because
SONICATION seems to be more efficient than conventional heat in ACTIVATING
chemical REACTIONS, they can be started at lower than normal temperatures,
thereby decreasing the formation of unwanted by-products and thus increasing
yield.  According to Boudjouk, one reaction normally carried out at several
hundred degrees was performed at room temperature with ultrasound.

Another promising application of ultrasonic waves is in the DEACTIVATION of
dangerous chemicals, Boudjouk reports.  He thinks the waves act as a catalyst,
facilitating reactions that DETOXIFY POISONS.

"This is all good news for the chemical industry," he says.  "They've pounced
on the idea already, and we've just begun to publish - the ink isn't dry."
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