Mechanochemistry and sonochemistry: concluding remarks

Abstract

This paper offers a perspective on mechanochemistry and offers summarizing commentary on the Faraday Discussion170, “Mechanochemistry: From Functional Solids to Single Molecules”. The connection between the mechanical and the chemical worlds dates back to our earliest written records and beyond, but its renaissance over the past decade or so has had an impact on a huge swathe of modern science and engineering: from metallurgists to polymer scientists to synthetic organic and inorganic chemists to cellular biologists. Connections among the different subfields of mechanochemistry (tribochemistry, trituration, macromolecular, and sonochemistry) are drawn out and the common themes and open questions are considered.