This is a list of unsolved problems in

chemistry Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the elements that make up matter to the compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions: their composition, structure, proper ...

. Problems in chemistry are considered unsolved when an expert in the field considers it unsolved or when several experts in the field disagree about a solution to a problem.

Physical chemistry problems

* Can the transition temperature of high-temperature superconductors be brought up to room temperature?

Organic chemistry problems

* What is the origin of

homochirality Homochirality is a uniformity of chirality, or handedness. Objects are chiral when they cannot be superposed on their mirror images. For example, the left and right hands of a human are approximately mirror images of each other but are not their ow ...

in biomolecules? * Why are accelerated

kinetics Kinetics ( grc, κίνησις, , kinesis, ''movement'' or ''to move'') may refer to: Science and medicine * Kinetics (physics), the study of motion and its causes ** Rigid body kinetics, the study of the motion of rigid bodies * Chemical kin ...

observed for some organic reactions at the water-organic interface? * Do replacement reactions of aryl

diazonium salts Diazonium compounds or diazonium salts are a group of organic compounds sharing a common functional group where R can be any organic group, such as an alkyl or an aryl, and X is an inorganic or organic anion, such as a halide. General properti ...

(dediazotizations) predominantly undergo SN1 or a radical mechanism?

Inorganic chemistry problems

* Are there any molecules that certainly contain a

phi bond In chemistry, phi bonds (φ bonds) are covalent chemical bonds, where six lobes of one involved atomic orbital overlap six lobes of the other involved atomic orbital. This overlap leads to the formation of a bonding molecular orbital with three ...

Biochemistry problems

Enzyme kinetics Enzyme kinetics is the study of the rates of enzyme-catalysed chemical reactions. In enzyme kinetics, the reaction rate is measured and the effects of varying the conditions of the reaction are investigated. Studying an enzyme's kinetics in thi ...

: Why do some

enzyme Enzymes () are proteins that act as biological catalysts by accelerating chemical reactions. The molecules upon which enzymes may act are called substrates, and the enzyme converts the substrates into different molecules known as products ...

s exhibit faster-than-diffusion kinetics? *

Protein folding Protein folding is the physical process by which a protein chain is translated to its native three-dimensional structure, typically a "folded" conformation by which the protein becomes biologically functional. Via an expeditious and reproduc ...

problem: Is it possible to predict the secondary, tertiary and quaternary structure of a

polypeptide Peptides (, ) are short chains of amino acids linked by peptide bonds. Long chains of amino acids are called proteins. Chains of fewer than twenty amino acids are called oligopeptides, and include dipeptides, tripeptides, and tetrapeptides. ...

sequence based solely on the sequence and environmental information? Inverse protein-folding problem: Is it possible to design a polypeptide sequence which will adopt a given structure under certain environmental conditions? This has been achieved for several small globular proteins in recent years. In 2020, it was announced that Google's

AlphaFold AlphaFold is an artificial intelligence (AI) program developed by DeepMind, a subsidiary of Alphabet, which performs predictions of protein structure. The program is designed as a deep learning system. AlphaFold AI software has had two major ve ...

, a neural network based on

DeepMind DeepMind Technologies is a British artificial intelligence subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. and research laboratory founded in 2010. DeepMind was acquired by Google in 2014 and became a wholly owned subsidiary of Alphabet Inc, after Google's restru ...

artificial intelligence, is capable of predicting a protein's final shape based solely on its amino-acid chain with an accuracy of around 90% on a test sample of proteins used by the team. * RNA folding problem: Is it possible to accurately predict the secondary, tertiary and quaternary structure of a polyribonucleic acid sequence based on its sequence and environment? *

Protein design Protein design is the rational design of new protein molecules to design novel activity, behavior, or purpose, and to advance basic understanding of protein function. Proteins can be designed from scratch (''de novo'' design) or by making calcul ...

: Is it possible to design highly active enzymes ''de novo'' for any desired reaction? *

Biosynthesis Biosynthesis is a multi-step, enzyme-catalyzed process where substrates are converted into more complex products in living organisms. In biosynthesis, simple compounds are modified, converted into other compounds, or joined to form macromolecul ...

: Can desired molecules, natural products or otherwise, be produced in high yield through biosynthetic pathway manipulation?

References

External links

*
Unsolved Problems in Nanotechnology: Chemical Processing by Self-Assembly - Matthew Tirrell
- Departments of Chemical Engineering and Materials, Materials Research Laboratory, California NanoSystems Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara o doc at link, 20 Aug 2016{{unsolved problems

Unsolved problems List of unsolved problems may refer to several notable conjectures or open problems in various academic fields: Natural sciences, engineering and medicine * Unsolved problems in astronomy * Unsolved problems in biology * Unsolved problems in chem ...

Scientific problems