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Archive for the ‘Supramolecular’ Category

ChemComm–RSC Prizes and Awards Symposium in Oxford

06 Mar 2012

We are delighted to announce the forthcoming ChemComm–RSC Prizes & Awards Symposium jointly organised with the RSC Dalton Division.

Date: Wednesday 23rd May 2012
Location: University of Oxford, UK
Time: 11am – 6.45 pm

The purpose of this event is to bring together scientists in a stimulating and friendly environment to recognise the achievements of individuals in advancing the chemical sciences and also to foster collaborations. The symposium will appeal to academic and industrial scientists with an interest in inorganic and supramolecular chemistry. Attendance at the symposium is FREE OF CHARGE and student participation is strongly encouraged.

The following distinguished scientists have agreed to speak:

Professor Manfred Scheer, University of Regensburg, Germany (ChemComm sponsored speaker) – Polyphosphorus Ligands in Supramolecular Chemistry
Professor Kay Severin, EPFL, Switzerland (ChemComm sponsored speaker) – Multicomponent Assembly of Molecular and Polymeric Nanostructures
Professor Andrew Cooper, University of Liverpool, UK (ChemComm sponsored speaker) – Porous Organic Cages: MOFs Minus the Metals?
Professor Lawrence Que, University of Minnesota, USA (Inorganic Mechanisms Award 2011 Winner) – C-H Bond Cleavage by High-Valent Non-haem Iron-Oxo Complexes
Professor Russell Morris, University of St Andrews, UK (Applied Inorganic Chemistry Award 2011 Winner) – Adsorption, storage and delivery of medically important gases in porous solids
Dr Jonathan Nitschke, University of Cambridge, UK (Corday-Morgan Prize 2011 Winner ) – Designing complexity and function within self-assembled chemical systems

To register for the symposium, please complete the online registration form.

For further details, please contact Richard Walker.

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ChemComm Emerging Investigator Lectureship 2012: The winner is….

05 Mar 2012

On behalf of the ChemComm Editorial Board, I am delighted to announce that Professor Hiromitsu Maeda (Ritsumeikan University, Japan) has won the ChemComm Emerging Investigator Lectureship 2012.

This annual award recognises an emerging scientist in the early stages of their independent academic career. The Editorial Board commended Professor Maeda’s contributions to the fields of organic chemistry, supramolecular chemistry and materials science.

‘Maeda is doing extremely exciting and innovative work in soft materials and particularly switchable gels chemistry,’ says ChemComm Associate Editor Jonathan Steed. ‘As one of the first people to recognise that gel rheology can be switched by simple host guest interactions, he has recently produced a startling and exquisite range of highly engineered compounds showing fascinating properties as smart materials.’

Further details of Professor Maeda’s lectureship, including lecture locations, will be announced soon.

To find out more about Professor Maeda’s work, read some of his latest articles:
Charge-based and charge-free molecular assemblies comprising π-extended derivatives of anion-responsive acyclic oligopyrroles
Yuya Bando, Shohei Sakamoto, Ippei Yamada, Yohei Haketa and Hiromitsu Maeda
Chem. Commun., 2012, 48, 2301-2303

Solid-state supramolecular assemblies consisting of planar charged species
Yohei Haketa, Mayumi Takayama and Hiromitsu Maeda
Org. Biomol. Chem., 2012, DOI: 10.1039/C2OB07059F

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Chiral self-recognition by simple macrocycles

05 Mar 2012

A recent communication from Isao Azumaya, Aya Tanatani and colleagues describes their work on some macrocycles based on cyclic triamide 1. The bowl-like structure of these macrocycles is reminiscent of well-known supramolecular building blocks such as calixarenes, and the authors hope that they might be similarly applied to constructing supramolecular architectures. These macrocycles have three possible inter-convertible conformations, of which the most stable syn- forms are enantiomeric.

The group found that a number of triamide-substituted macrocycles such as 2 dimerise into capsule-like structures in the solid state through interactions between the amide groups. Remarkably, 2 formed chiral crystals, as the macrocycles dimerised in the syn-form and only with their own enantiomer. This is the first report of the separation of cyclic triamides without using an additional chiral species, and shows that this particular macrocycle is able to recognise its own enantiomer (in the figure below single enantiomers are shown in the same colour).

In solution, a tricarboxylate-substituted macrocycle was shown to interact with a chiral amine guest. This caused induction of chirality in a host in which, in equilibrium in solution, no particular enantiomer is usually favoured.

These simple macrocycles are easy to synthesise and functionalise and have fascinating dynamic behaviour in solution and in the solid state. They are an exciting prospect for application as molecular building blocks with the added potential for host-guest chemistry.

Find out more – download the communication for free for limited period.

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RSC Publishing poster prizes awarded at ISMSC

24 Feb 2012

Congratulations to the following students who were awarded ChemComm, Dalton Transactions and Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry poster prizes at the 2012 International Symposium on Macrocyclic and Supramolecular Chemistry (ISMSC) at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand:

Jean-Francois Ayme (Edinburgh) – “Pentameric Circular Helicates as a Scaffold for a Molecular Pentafoil Knot”
Jessica Holmes (Melbourne) – “Supramolecular Systems of Cyclotricatechylene”
David Hvasanov (UNSW) – “Photoinduced membrane proton-pumping via polymersomes as chloroplast mimics”

The poster prize winners with Professor Phil Gale from the ISMSC-2012 International Advisory Committee (photo courtesy of Scott Cameron from the Brooker group)

Nominations for the 2013 Cram Lehn Pedersen prize to be awarded at ISMSC-8 in Crystal City, Virginia, USA, will open later in the year. Stay tuned to the ChemComm blog for details.

Related news:
Cram Lehn Pedersen Prize awarded at ISMSC

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Cram Lehn Pedersen Prize awarded at ISMSC

31 Jan 2012

The 2012 Cram Lehn Pedersen Prize has recently been awarded to Dr Jonathan Nitschke at the 2012 International Symposium on Macrocyclic and Supramolecular Chemistry (ISMSC-7) at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand.

The prize, sponsored by ChemComm and named in honour of the winners of the 1987 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, recognises significant, original and independent work in supramolecular chemistry by emerging investigators.

: ChemComm Associate Editor Jonathan Steed (left) presents Jonathan Nitschke with the Cram Lehn Pedersen Prize (photo taken by Scott Cameron)

Presenting the award on behalf of ChemComm and the Organising Committee of the ISMSC, Professor Jonathan Steed of Durham University commented that “the forward-looking and sophisticated approach to the field adopted by its new stars such as Jonathan Nitschke highlights just how far the area has moved forward from its roots in classical macrocyclic chemistry. We can never forget just how visionary those early macrocyclic pioneers were in recognising the key interrelated importance of shape and function at a molecular level. This startling evolution was beautifully documented at the meeting by a fascinating retrospective by macrocyclic pioneer Prof. Neil Curtis that immediately preceded Prof. Nitschke’s elegant description of the self-assembled container chemistry and thermally switchable gels he is producing using the same principles some 55 years after Curtis’ initial discoveries.”

The conference continues until 2nd February. Later in the year, Jonathan Nitschke will be taking part in a Swiss lecture tour to celebrate his award: University of Zurich (29 May), Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne (EPFL; 30 May), University of Geneva (31 May), Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH; 1 June).

Nominations for the 2013 Cram Lehn Pedersen prize to be awarded at ISMSC-8 in Crystal City, Virginia, USA, will open later in the year. Stay tuned to the ChemComm blog for details.

Also of interest:
2011 Winner: Professor Amar Flood
ChemComm Supramolecular Chemistry web theme

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Solvent effects in supramolecules

27 Jan 2012

We know the importance of water in protein folding but what about organic solvent effects in self-assembling structures?

A team of scientists from the Netherlands decided to find out what happens to the supramolecular structure of deuterated benzene tricarboxamide (D-BTA) when the molecular structure of the organic solvent is changed. You may not think that swapping methylcyclohexane for heptane may make much difference – both are non-polar with similar properties. Think again.

D-BTA conformers exhibiting M helicity

Paul van der Schoot, Bert Meijer, Anja Palmans and their team discovered that substitution of one solvent for another was enough to influence the helical sense preference and conformation of D-BTA supramolecular polymers. It seems that linear solvents, such as heptane used here, actively participate in the self-assembly of the D-BTA units, causing the supramolecular aggregates to favour one helicity over the other, whereas solvents with branched or cyclic molecular structures do not permit such solvent–molecule interactions.

Once again, chemistry shows us that the smallest of changes on the molecular scale can influence more than first thought.

Keep an eye out for many more chirality-related articles to come as part of our forthcoming Chirality web theme issue. To read more about Palmans and colleagues’ findings, download the ChemComm article.

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Polydiacetylenes: Functional supramolecular smart materials

27 Jan 2012

Polydiacetylene polymers (PDAs) are a popular research topic for polymer and materials chemists due to their interesting optical, spectral, electronic and structural properties. Jong-Man Kim and colleagues’ recent Feature Article gives a detailed overview of the diverse range of structural morphologies and the related functional properties featured by PDAs in recent years and highlight their importance in sensor and display technologies.

Interactions between the diacetylene (DA) monomers before polymerisation can directly influence the final polymerised structure. The monomers can be functionalised to contain motifs that encourage non-covalent interactions such as hydrogen bonding, π-stacking, electrostatics and hydrophobic interactions, allowing the DAs to self-assemble into nanostructures. Subsequent polymerisation of the acetylene groups results in cross-linking within the nanostructure, forming new materials with striking properties. One particularly interesting example of this is shown below – the DA monomers are substituted with long hydrophobic chains and polar head groups which assemble in water to form vesicles. Shining UV light on the vesicles causes the diacetylene groups to polymerise, generating PDA vesicles which are blue in colour.

For an in-depth and fascinating overview of the recent conceptual and technological advances in the chemistry of PDAs, download the full Feature Article here.

Posted on behalf of Cally Haynes, web science writer for ChemComm.

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Chemical Science and ChemComm poster prizes awarded at MASC

22 Dec 2011

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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55 days until 100 issues…

06 Nov 2011

….and did you know….?

Picture of Professor Jonathan L. Sessler 55 is the age of ChemComm Associate Editor Jonathan Sessler (although don’t tell him I told you!).

Jonathan handles North American submissions in the areas of supramolecular and macrocyclic chemistry. He was one of the guest editors of this year’s Supramolecular Chemistry web theme, which is a superb collection of cutting edge contributions by international leaders in the field.

You can submit to Jonathan’s editorial office via our online submission system.

Read Jonathan’s latest ChemComm communication >

Also of interest:
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Aromaticity web theme issue – welcoming submissions

02 Nov 2011

We are delighted to announce a high-profile web themed issue on Aromaticity.

Guest editors: Nazario Martín (University Complutense of Madrid), Michael Hayley (University of Oregon) and Rik Tykwinski (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg)

This themed issue will consist of a series of invited Communications and Feature Articles covering work on all aspects of chemistry related with aromaticity – from new fundamental knowledge about aromaticity and theoretically interesting new arene structures to novel applications of aromatics and heteroaromatics which take advantage of their unique optical and electronic attributes.

The level of quality of this issue will be extremely high, and all manuscripts will undergo strict peer review. You are therefore encouraged to report work that you consider to be very important and conceptually significant. Please note that inclusion in the issue is subject to the discretion of the guest editors.

Publication of the peer-reviewed articles will occur without delay to ensure the timely dissemination of the work. The articles will then be assembled on the ChemComm website as a web-based thematic issue.

Submit your work before 31^st May 2012. Please add “aromaticity” in the comments to the editor section.

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