...but when my kid started his education in Materials Science - and I set out to follow what he's doing - a whole new world opened up.
Of course, nuclear fuels are some of the most demanding materials in the world, and when I learned that the nitrides of the actinides were remarkable refractories with high thermal conductivity, it blew my mind.
The nitrides of the other elements are also fascinating.
It turns out that one of my son's professors got his Ph.D (and a post doc) in Shuji Nakamura's lab. Nakamura's Nobel was for just one compound, GaN.
(It's a remarkable story, Nakamura's life; he almost didn't get into college because of his fascination with playing volleyball. I recommend his Nobel Lecture for sheer amazement at a strange career.)
I mean GaN is still a subject of huge research.
It made it possible to include blue light in LEDs, which is why we can now have white LEDs.
The nonmetal nitrides are also amazing, boron nitride is an amazing material, as are the silicon nitrides.
For me though, the class of nitrides that really blow my mind completely are Barsoum's MAX phases. (Some MAX phases are carbides as well as nitrides.) They are the most amazing materials, a mixed bag with the properties of ceramics and metals, machinable ceramics actually. I found out about them before my kid went to college, and I spent a lot of time talking about them in a general way with him; and I'd like to believe that had something to do with him choosing materials science, although I also recall that there was a time when they were in Junior High School that I found them, both my boys, expressing fascination with hydrogels.
It turns out that as I was scanning Barsoum's monograph, my son was actually sitting in a room with Barsoum himself, unbeknownst to me, since he was applying to Drexel's materials science department. He was accepted there, but chose another university where he got an offer he couldn't refuse - his first choice in any case.
There are boron and silicon nitrides that are polymer derived ceramics that are essentially polymers with huge ternary structures, with many of the thermal insulation properties of hydrogels. Full circle for my kid, I think.
For me though, man, like you, I never took them seriously - I'm sure I didn't consider them at all (most of my career has been around medicinal chemistry, proteomics and peptides in any case).
Most of us aren't really trained to think about the inorganic chemistry of nitrogen, but it's exceedingly rich, and I'm a little sad that I didn't really think about it until late in life.
Sorry to ramble, but it's really remarkable, and it's nice to run across someone else who appreciates it....
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