CHEMISTRY GLOSSARY

volume    →   volumen

Volume is a space taken by a certain mass of some matter. SI unit for volume is a cubic meter (m³). Changes of temperature or pressure can change volume.

white light    →   bijela svjetlost

White light is a mixture of lights of all colours. If white light is passed through a glass prism or an optical lattice, it is separated into several colours (the visible light spectrum).

carbohydrate    →   ugljikohidrat

Carbohydrates (often called carbs for short) are polyhydroxy aldehydes or ketones, or substances that yield such compounds on hydrolysis. They are also known as saccharides, a term derived from the Latin word saccharum for sugar. Carbohydrates are the most abundant class of compounds in the biological world, making up more than 50 % of the dry weight of the Earth’s biomass. Every type of food we eat can have its energy traced back to a plant. Plants use carbon dioxide and water to make glucose, a simple sugar, in photosynthesis. Other carbohydrates such as cellulose and starch are made from the glucose. Light from the sun is absorbed by chlorophyll and this is converted to the energy necessary to biosynthesize carbohydrates

The term carbohydrate was applied originally to monosaccharides, in recognition of the fact that their empirical composition can be expressed as C_x(H₂O)_y. Later structural studies revealed that these compounds were not hydrates but the term carbohydrate persists.

Carbohydrates are generally classed as either simple or complex. Simple sugars, or monosaccharides, are carbohydrates that can’t be converted into smaller subunits by hydrolysis. Complex carbohydrates are made of two (disaccharides) or more (oligosaccharides, polysaccharides) simple sugars linked together by acetal (glycosidic) bonds and can be split into the former by hydrolysis.

close-packed structure    →   gusta slagalina

Close packing is the packing of spheres so as to occupy the minimum amount of space. The name close packed refers to the packing efficiency of 74.05 %. There are two types of close packing: hexagonal and cubic. One layer, with atoms centered on sites labeled a. Two layers, with the atoms of the second layer centered on sites labeled b. The third layer can be placed on the sites labeled c (giving cubic close-packing) or over those marked a (giving hexagonal close-packing).

crystal system    →   kristalni sustav

Crystal system is a method of classifying crystalline substances on the basis of their unit cell. There are seven unique crystal systems. The simplest and most symmetric, the cubic (or isometric) system, has the symmetry of a cube. The other six systems, in order of decreasing symmetry, are hexagonal, tetragonal, rhombohedral (also known as trigonal), orthorhombic, monoclinic and triclinic.

Crystal system	Unit-cell	Conditions on unit-cell edges and angles
cubic		a=b=c α=β=γ=90°
hexagonal		a≠c α=γ=90° β=120°
tetragonal		a=b≠c α=β=γ=90°
rhombohedral		a=b=c α=β=γ≠90°
orthorhombic		a≠b≠c α=β=γ=90°
monoclinic		a≠b≠c α=γ=90°≠β
triclinic		a≠b≠c α≠β≠γ≠90°

diamond    →   dijamant

Diamond is the hardest known mineral (with a hardness of 10 on Mohs’ scale). It is an allotropic form of pure carbon that has crystallised in the cubic system, usually as octahedral or cubes, under great pressure. Diamond crystals my be colourless and transparent or yellow, brown or black. They are highly prized as gemstones, but also have extensive uses in industry, mainly for cutting and grinding tools. Diamonds occur in ancient volcanic pipes of kimberlite, or in river deposits that have been derived from weathered kimberlite. Industrial diamonds are being increasingly synthetically produced.

diatomaceous earth    →   dijatomejska zemlja

Diatomaceous earth is a naturally occurring siliceous sedimentary mineral compound from microscopic skeletal remains (frustules) of diatoms, unicellular aquatic plants of microscopic size. Their fossilized remains are called diatomite and contains approximately 3000 diatom frustules per cubic millimetre.

Diatomite is relatively inert and has a high absorptive capacity, large surface area, and low bulk density. It consists of approximately 90 % silica, and the remainder consists of compounds such as aluminum and iron oxides. The fine pores in the diatom frustules make diatomite an excellent filtering material for waters, beverages, oils, chemicals, as well as many other products.

electrophoresis    →   elektroforeza

Electrophoresis is a technique for the analysis and separation of colloids, based on the movement of charged colloidal particles in an electric field. The migration is toward electrodes of charge opposite to that of the particles. The rate of migration of the particles depends on the field, the charge on the particles, and on other factors, such as the size and shape of the particles.

Electrophoresis is important in the study of proteins. The acidity of the solution can be used to control the direction in which a protein moves upon electrophoresis.

enzyme    →   enzim

Enzyme is a protein that acts as a catalyst in biochemical reactions. Each enzyme is specific to a particular reaction or a group of similar reactions. Many require the association of certain nonprotein cofactors in order to function. The molecule undergoing a reaction (the substrate) binds to a specific active site on the enzyme molecule to form a short-lived intermediate: this greatly increases (by a factor of up to 10²⁰) the rate at which the reaction proceeds to form the product.

Geiger counter    →   Geigerov brojač

Geiger counter (Geiger-Muller counter) is a device used to detect and measure ionising radiation. It consists of a tube containing a low-pressure gas (usually argon or neon with methane) and a cylindrical hollow cathode through the centre of which runs a fine-wire anode. A potential difference of about 1 000 V is maintained between the electrodes. An ionising particle or photon passing through a window into the tube will cause an ion to be produced and the high potential will accelerate it towards its appropriate electrode, causing an avalanche of further ionisations by collision. The consequent current pulses can be counted in electronic circuits or simply amplified to work a small loudspeaker in the instrument. It was first devised in 1908 by the German physicist Hans Geiger (1882-1945). Geiger and W. Muller produced an improved design in 1928.