Question: What chemicals do you study?

Jayne Ede answered on 10 Nov 2017:

Lots, so on one hand, the ones I’m interested in are the poisonous ones, things like mustard gas (sulfur mustard) or nerve agents, which you can look up – they’re very nasty.

On the other hand, the whole point of my job is to find out about other chemicals that can destroy or trap or detect those poisons, so I’m interested in those chemicals too! Some of the ones I like the best are called the ‘cavitands’, which are basically tiny tiny cages made out of atoms, which we try to use to trap poisons. Here’s a picture (the coloured balls represent different atoms) of a cage molecule.

Then there are the every day ones I need to make my experiments work! So acids, alkalis, solvents like alcohols, chloroform and acetone (nail polish remover), and lots and lots of water!