Aggregated “simple” luminogens emit bright red light
Read the full original research paper…
Aggregation-induced emission enhancement materials with large red shifts and their self-assembled crystal microstructures
Qing Dai, Weimin Liu, Lintao Zeng, Chun-Sing Lee, Jiasheng Wu and Pengfei Wang
CrystEngComm, 2011, 13, 4617-4624
This month’s Crystal Clear shows a vanadia star-shaped nanocrystal.
The crystal was made by Sarbajit Banerjee and colleagues at the State University of New York, Buffalo. They were making six-armed nanocrystallites of binary vanadium oxides, and although in this particular image the arms aren’t fully separated, we still thought it was a great looking crystal. They used a new seeded growth strategy that was very successful in making controlled shapes with good monodispersity, and you’ll have to read the full paper to see the complete nanostars!
Vanadium oxides are important in technology, partly because the variety of structures they can form makes them invaluable as host lattices, but also because of their interesting electonic, electrochromic, magnetic and optical properties. Vanadium oxides have consequently been used in batteries, as well as optical applications like laser crystals and switching devices.
This paper was published in Issue 17 of CrystEngComm, and was featured on the front cover, read our earlier blog to find out more.
Read the full article for free to find our more and to see the fully formed star-shaped crystals…
A VO-seeded approach for the growth of star-shaped VO2 and V2O5 nanocrystals: facile synthesis, structural characterization, and elucidation of electronic structure
Luisa Whittaker, Jesus M. Velazquez and Sarbajit Banerjee
CrystEngComm, 2011, 13, 5328-5336
Issue 17 of CrystEngComm is now online, with a brilliant cover from Sarbajit Banerjee from the State University of New York at Buffalo.
The image shows their star-shaped vanadium oxide nanocrystals, which in this paper they make via a new seeded growth strategy. Their technique is particularly impressive because of the well-defined morphologies of their crystals. Banerjee writes ‘[our results]…suggest a generalizable approach for using the intrinsic crystal symmetry of one phase to control the crystal growth of a second related phase under solvothermal conditions’
Read the full article to find out more, and to see their pretty crystals!…
A VO-seeded approach for the growth of star-shaped VO2 and V2O5 nanocrystals: facile synthesis, structural characterization, and elucidation of electronic structure
Luisa Whittaker, Jesus M. Velazquez and Sarbajit Banerjee
CrystEngComm, 2011, 13, 5328-533
Interested in Dr Banerjee’s research? Visit his webpage at the University at Buffalo…
In this CrystEngComm Hot article Joël Moreau and colleagues create a porous network from a host compound based on spirocyclic triphosphazene.
Their porous network has bigger cavity sizes and is more stable than other similiar structures, while still managing to achieve the desirable tunnel-like cavities found previously.
Read the full article for FREE to find out more about these porous networks…
Synthesis and crystal structure of tris(2,3-triphenylenedioxy)cyclotriphosphazene: a new clathration system
Mathias Reynes, Olivier J. Dautel, David Virieux, David Flot and Joël J. E. Moreau
CrystEngComm, 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C1CE05529A
The compounds aggregate to form double helices in the solution state, an interesting discovery, as artificial double helices are very rare.
Read the full article for FREE until 30th August to find out more…
Self-complementary hydrogen-bonded duplexes and helices based on bis(pyrrolyl)carbohydrazide derivatives
Dehui Hu, Zhipei Yang, Guoqi Zhang, Min Liu, Junfeng Xiang, Tongling Liang, Jinshi Ma and Guoqiang Yang
CrystEngComm, 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C1CE05542A
Giner-Planas relates the presence of infinite O–H···N hydrogen bonding networks with melting points using decomposed Fingerprint plots, which looks to be a really interesting finding for crystal engineers.
Read the full article for FREE until 30th August…
Supramolecular architectures in o-carboranyl alcohols bearing N-aromatic rings: syntheses, crystal structures and melting points correlation
Florencia Di Salvo, Beatriz Camargo, Yolanda García, Francesc Teixidor, Clara Viñas, José Giner Planas, Mark E. Light and Michael B. Hursthouse
CrystEngComm, 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C1CE05449J
In this CrystEngComm Hot article, Roberto Otero and colleagues from Spain self assemble zinc meso-tetramesitylporphyrin on copper and gold into one-dimensional nanorods.
Otero explains they are ‘shish-kebab type coordination polymers’, and that they can extend for hundreds of nanometres.
Read the full article for FREE to find out more about these porphyrin nanorods…
Surface assembly of porphyrin nanorods with one-dimensional zinc–oxygen spinal cords
Marta Trelka, Christian Urban, Celia Rogero, Paula de Mendoza, Eva Mateo-Marti, Yang Wang, Iñaki Silanes, David Écija, Manuel Alcamí, Felix Yndurain, Andrés Arnau, Fernando Martín, Antonio M. Echavarren, José Ángel Martín-Gago, José María Gallego, Roberto Otero and Rodolfo Miranda
CrystEngComm, 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C1CE05494E
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Zhi Zheng and co-workers from Central China Normal University made δ-Bi2O3 spheres, which became the reactive template to make the hierarchical ternary BiOI nest-shaped structures.
Read the full article for FREE to find out more…
Low temperature synthesis of δ-Bi2O3 solid spheres and their conversion to hierarchical BiOI nests via the Kirkendall effect
Manying Liu, Lizhi Zhang, Kewei Wang and Zhi Zheng
CrystEngComm, 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C1CE05101F
Song Gao and colleagues from Peking University investigate a way of improving the chances of obtaining chiral crystalline solids, in this CrystEngComm Hot article.
Control of chirality is important in the making of drugs, and in materials that are used for things like second-order nonlinear optics and ferroelectrics. Here Gao uses more acentric centers in the crystal lattice, to try and obtain chiral solids from achiral starting materials.
Read the full article for FREE to find out more about making chiral crystals…
Chiral crystalline solids of ammonium-templated ErIII–formate frameworks assembled from three achiral acentric components
Bin Liu, Hai-Bin Zheng, Zhe-Ming Wang and Song Gao
CrystEngComm, 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C1CE05250K
CrystEngComm awarded two poster prizes at the American Crystallographic Association meeting 2011, in New Orleans last month.
The judges felt very strongly that Arbin Rajbanshi’s poster on “Alkali Metal-Coordination Cages for Selective Sulfate Binding and Separation” and Debasis Banerjee’s poster on “Design of New Magnesium Coordination Networks Using Solvents as Structure Directing Agents” were both excellent presentations.
Arbin Rajbanshi is based at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, working in the Chemical Separations Laboratory. Read this CrystEngComm paper that he co-authored:
Mapping out the synthetic landscape for re-crystallization, co-crystallization and salt formation
Christer B. Aakeröy, Arbin Rajbanshi, Z. Jane Li and John Desper, CrystEngComm, 2010, 12, 4231-4239
Debassis Banerjee is from Stony Brook University, USA, and works with John B. Parise.
To see more about how the meeting went visit the ACA website
