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ChemComm has 10 world-leading Associate Editors who handle submissions within their areas of expertise. You can select one of their Editorial Offices (or the Cambridge Editorial Office) when you submit your article.
* These US-based Associate Editors handle manuscripts from North America only.
Congratulations to Hui-Chen Wang, from the University of Bath, who won the Chemical Science poster prize at the RSC Macrocyclic and Supramolecular Chemistry Meeting in Bath on 19th-20th December 2011. Her poster was entitled ‘New Boronic Acid Based Fluorescence Sensors’.
Well done also to Eric A. Appel (University of Cambridge) for his poster on ‘Aqueous Supramolecular Materials via Host-Guest Complexation with Cucurbit[8]uril’, for which he was awarded the ChemComm poster prize.
Hui-Chen and Eric receive a one-year personal subscription to Chemical Science and ChemComm respectively. Thank you to Paul Raithby, Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Bath, for awarding the prize certificates.
Did you know…? Paul Raithby has published more than 100 articles in ChemComm. He told me how his research has evolved into ‘making molecular movies’ in his ChemComm interview published in issue 1, 2012.
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It takes 16 people in ChemComm‘s Cambridge office to put together an issue of Chemical Communications. To find out who is involved, view our staff web page.
Find out about the move to 100 issues >
UK scientists have developed a cheap way of cleaning tarnished metals in industry to prevent corrosion using a UV activated photocatalyst ink. The dirty surface can then simply be washed away with water.
Stainless steel corrosion in industry costs the UK around 4 per cent of gross national product each year. The corrosion is caused by a build up of metal oxides on the metals’ surfaces, which can become contaminated with corrosion products. Currently, aggressive chemicals such as strong acids and chelating agents are used to remove the oxides.
Andrew Mills and David Hazafy from Queen’s University, Belfast, have made anatase titania (TiO2) films to apply to the metal surfaces to clean them. The team was initially interested in titania’s ability to drive ‘useful photo-reduction reactions’, says Mills. It was while preparing TiO2 photocatalyst films on stainless steel as part of a water-splitting photo diode project that they noticed that the appearance of tarnish was diminished.
TiO2 is a well known photocatalyst used in the redox reductions of metal oxides. When it is exposed to ultraviolet light, conduction band electrons and valence band holes are produced. The electrons and holes can either recombine or move to the surface of the film where they undergo redox reactions with adsorbed chemical species. But, on introduction of an electron donor, such as ethanol, the donor reacts with the holes, leaving the electrons free to react with metal oxides.
A stainless steel sample without (A) and with (B) the ink on its surface. (C): irradiation of sample B with UV light through a brass TiO2 template. (D): washing off the ink using water. The bronze coloured oxide coating has been removed by the illuminated section of the ink
Read the full story in Chemistry World
Link to journal article
UV-activated photocatalyst films and inks for cleaning tarnished metals
Andrew Mills and David Hazafy
Chem. Commun., 2012, 48, 525-527
DOI: 10.1039/C1CC15774D
…and did you know..?
24% of the articles published in ChemComm this year were from China.
This is almost three times as much as the proportion 5 years ago – in 2007, Chinese articles only made up 9% of publications in the journal. This represents the explosion of chemistry research in China over the last decade.
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ChemComm‘s impact factor (Journal Citation Reports®) has increased by 28% over the past 5 years. Our latest 2010 impact factor is 5.787 – a clear indication of the high quality research that ChemComm publishes.
Scientists from China and the US have made an artificial enzyme that may provide new hope for the treatment of Lou Gehrig’s disease (a degenerative neuromuscular disease that destroys nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord). In tests, the apoferritin–CeO2 nanocomposite cleared harmful reactive oxygen species – which have been linked to the disease – in living cells better than the natural antioxidant enzyme superoxide dismutase.
Reference:
Apoferritin-CeO2 nano-truffle that has excellent artificial redox enzyme activity
X Liu, W Wei, Q Yuan, X Zhang, N Li, Y Du, G Ma, C Yan and D Ma, Chem. Commun., 2011
DOI: 10.1039/c1cc15815e
A simple and cheap way to clean tarnished metals using a UV activated photocatalyst ink has been developed by UK scientists. Removing steel corrosion is a major concern in many industries. Most metals are thermodynamically unstable in air and aqueous solution but owe their durability to metal oxides that form on the surface. However, when the metal oxides thicken, it leads to contamination with undesirable corrosion products that need to be removed. Aggressive chemicals such as strong acids and chelating agents are usually required to remove them.
The photocatalyst ink was applied to the tarnished metal and then UV light was shone onto it. This produced conduction band electrons and valence band holes. An electron donor species in the ink reacted with the holes, leaving the photogenerated electrons to react with absorbed metal ions. The metal oxide layer could then be removed with water.
Reference:
Photocatalyst film and ink for cleaning tarnished metals
A Mills and D Hazafy, Chem. Commun., 2011
DOI: 10.1039/c1cc15774d
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Focus Articles aren’t the only ‘special’ article type to be published ChemComm. This year we’ve published a series of Highlights in Chemistry to celebrate the International Year of Chemistry. And next year, to celebrate our move to 100 issues, we’ll be introducing some exciting new content – stay tuned for our issue 1, 2012 Editorial to find out more!
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….and did you know….?
Also of interest
100 days to 100 issues
96 days until 100 issues…
93 days until 100 issues…
81 days until 100 issues…
72 days until 100 issues…
70 days until 100 issues…
65 days until 100 issues…
55 days until 100 issues…
50 days until 100 issues…
48 days until 100 issues…
44 days until 100 issues…
