Darren Broom

There's just something about the colour orange at the moment. It's very distracting...

I'm a bit late to this thread, but I've now spent several minutes contemplating whether 'oranger and oranger' is correct, or whether it should be 'orangier and orangier'; and this has been distracting me from my studies for a PhD in biotechnology science.

I used to waste years preparing gourmet meals. It was creative, an expression of my humanity, and fostered zen.

Thanks to McDonalds, I don't have to do that!

#Satire

Photograph of sandy-coloured tiles arranged in a six-fold rotationally symmetric pattern, devoid of mirror symmetry. The repeating motif comprises a six-pointed star, surrounded by Z-shaped and roughly L-shaped tiles. The finish is matt, and the colouration variable. The eye is mostly drawn to the black lines between the tiles, rather than to the tiles themselves.

Tiling in the Palace of the Lions (p6 symmetry). #TilesOnTuesday #Tiling #Alhambra #Granada #Andalucia #Architecture #Symmetry #Photography

Timmy Mallet would seem to be a safe bet.

Good morning from London Book Fair!
📍 Find us at Stand 7D81 🙂

Scrubbing the Sky: Reimagining the Air as a Resource

An interesting read. Some of the numbers associated with DAC are eye-watering, e.g.:

"For example, removing the 36.3 gigatons (Gt) of CO₂ emitted in just 2024 using DAC would require ∼44,000 terawatt-hours of electricity, which is ∼1.5 times total electricity generated on Earth annually."

This paper has even been cited, apparently in this article:

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Just read the abstract 🫠 via Alexander Magazinov. I don't believe he is on Bluesky.

Crude oil prices, showing a very sharp increase in the last day, from around 65 to 101 dollars per barrel..

Oil prices wouldn't be all over the news today if more of our economy was powered by local, secure renewable energy.

This isn't an "energy crisis". It's a fossil fuel crisis.

44% of UK electricity came from renewables in 2025. More of that plus an electrified economy => no more oil shocks.

New computer file could standardise how chemists report MOF syntheses File stores synthesis and characterisation data, much like files for crystal structures

It isn't always easy to recreate a MOF from the methods section of a paper. The creators of a new data standard hope to make it much simpler in future.

Optical illusion of a woman bent over some papers. Her sunglasses are pushed up and she is wearing a hair band so the top of her head looks exactly like a Muppet face

Sorry I know the world is in a terrible fix but I've been laughing at this for ten minutes now

I love "vague efforts". What are vague efforts!?!

"Your paper is problematic."

"Stop being vague!"

It might just be terrible 80s hair metal...

"What really makes coordination chemistry special, though, is its very own tools-namely, the properties that grant it “increased versatility,” rendering it often more useful than organic drugs/weapons for certain jobs of a complicated nature."

Organic weapons for certain complicated jobs?

An hour & 40 minutes just to get through passport control at Frankfurt airport. I've had more thrilling Saturday evenings...

Final day at the 37th German Zeolite Conference!

Great to connect with researchers and industry professionals across the porous materials community. Thanks to everyone who stopped by our stand.

Safe travels all.

#DZT#Zeolites#MaterialsScience#HidenIsochema | @dechema.bsky.social

Presented our recent work on MOFs x data science in the 37th German Zeolite Conference. We had a good discussion on the future of MOF synthesis!

A tired Organizer pointing at a poster.

The 37. German Zeolite conference in Stuttgart @mpifkf.bsky.social that we co-organized with @lotschgroup.bsky.social and Mika Linden @uniulm.bsky.social just ended. Thanks to the Team and DECHEMA. This was fun! See you all next year in Leipzig.

At the German Zeolite Conference (DZT) in Stuttgart, @kenichiendo.bsky.social discusses data management and analysis of MOF synthesis using data models.

An interesting & important counterpart to the Adsorption Information File (AIF)!

I managed to get on the right train & made it to Stuttgart, but the lifts in my hotel are not working & I'm staying on the 9th floor. This is suboptimal.

I've just arrived in Frankfurt & am going to try not to get on the wrong train.

We’re attending the 37th German Zeolite Conference starting tomorrow in Stuttgart.

If you’re there, we’d be pleased to connect and discuss sorption and porous materials research.

Read more - hidenisochema.com/news-press/h...
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#DZT2026#PorousMaterials#HidenIsochema | @dechema.bsky.social

It's not entirely clear why it's 'news' now, but I still thought it was interesting that it's being reported like this.

Omar Yaghi, MOFs & water harvesting in @theguardian.com.

#ChemSky

This is fantastic, hope to see a wide adoption!

We also hope to see more standardized characterization community-wide, with X-ray diffraction measurements to higher angles, good signal-to-noise, and proper plotting of the low intensity regions for phase verification.

I really like this photo & its accompanying alt-text:

"A person in a laboratory, wearing a white coat and safety glasses, examines a beaker with an amber liquid..."

An anonymous person?

This is a treemendous thread. I can't believe I missed it yesterday.

@thematterlab.bsky.social is branching out here. (Paging @timeasun.bsky.social for emergency pun support)

Lol I can think of a few doozies I caused