Chemical Communications Blog

A compound that kills bacteria and cleaves their DNA to prevent them passing on drug-resistant genes has been designed by researchers in India.

The increasing ineffectiveness of antibiotics and the absence of suitable new ones are problems long recognised by the medical community. Bacteria can mutate and adapt to become resistant so the stock of effective antibiotics is diminishing. In a recent report, the UK’s Chief Medical Officer stated that increasingly resistant microbes represent a global threat that in the next 20 years could see many more deaths associated with what were routine and safe surgeries.

Read the full article in Chemistry World»

Read the original journal article in ChemComm – it’s free to download until 11th July:
A prospective antibacterial for drug-resistant pathogens: a dual warhead amphiphile designed to track interactions and kill pathogenic bacteria by membrane damage and cellular DNA cleavage
Durairaj Thiyagarajan, Sudeep Goswami, Chirantan Kar, Gopal Das and Aiyagari Ramesh
Chem. Commun., 2014, Advance Article, DOI: 10.1039/C4CC02354D, Communication

Due to their low volatility, favourable solvent properties and tunable phase behaviour, ionic liquid (IL) technology continues to attract interest in a wide variety of applications. Over the last few decades, the term ‘task specific ionic liquid’ (TSIL) has appeared, the meaning of which is that the application has been considered more carefully in the design and structure of one or both of the constituent IL ions.

In this ChemComm communciation, researchers from the Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico, USA, describe advances in the application of ILs in the area of nuclear fuel reprocessing. The authors describe how neptunium may exist in solution in +III, +IV, +V and + VI oxidation states. The pentavalent state is the most stable and common, but interestingly, usually the most reluctant to coordinate with ligands, or take part in ion exchange processes.

Ionic liquid molecular structure and stabilizing behaviour towards Np(V) in aqueous solution

In aqeuous solution, in the presence of the ionic liquid betaine bistriflimide, the lifetime of the Np(IV) solution species is significantly increased. This is followed by the presence of a characteristic electronic adsorption at 970nm. Without the IL, an anti-oxidant is required to keep the metal from converting to its +V form. Np(V) has a rich and complex coordination chemistry at room temperature, so the authors repeated experiments with sources of  Np(V) at 60^oC. After 3 days, 90% of the starting neptunium compound had been converted to the betaine complexed form, compared with a 15% conversion at room temperature. Again the material was stable in solution, not resulting in Np(IV) species unless a reducing agent such as hydrazine was deliberately added.

With this detailed study, the authors significantly add to the body of knowledge of competitive coordination chemistry of actinides in aqueous solutions of ionic liquids. This should, in turn, enable new separation technology R&D for the important task of nuclear fuel reprocessing.

Read this ChemComm communication for free* today!

Unusual redox stability of neptunium in the ionic liquid [Hbet][Tf₂N]
Kristy Long, George Goff and Wolfgang Runde
DOI: 10.1039/C4CC01835D

*Access is free untill Friday 6th June through a registered RSC account – click here to register

All of the referee-recommended articles below are free to access until 2nd June 2014

Surprising acidity of hydrated lithium cations in organic solvents
Haiqiang Deng, Pekka Peljo, T. Jane Stockmann, Liang Qiao, Tuomas Vainikka, Kyösti Kontturi, Marcin Opallo and Hubert H. Girault 
Chem. Commun., 2014,50, 5554-5557
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In situ generation of sulfoxides with predetermined chirality via a structural template with a chiral-at-metal ruthenium complex
Zheng-Zheng Li, Su-Yang Yao, Jin-Ji Wu and Bao-Hui Ye 
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A triple-channel lab-on-a-molecule for triple-anion quantification using an iridium(III)–imidazolium conjugate
Kun Chen and Michael Schmittel 
Chem. Commun., 2014,50, 5756-5759
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A bromine-radical mediated three-component reaction comprising allenes, electron-deficient alkenes and allyl bromides: facile synthesis of 2-bromo-1,7-dienes
Takashi Kippo and Ilhyong Ryu 
Chem. Commun., 2014, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C4CC01597E, Communication

Photocatalytic CO2 reduction using a molecular cobalt complex deposited on TiO2 nanoparticles
Tong Jin, Chao Liu and Gonghu Li 
Chem. Commun., 2014, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C4CC00503A, Communication

Simulation of the self-assembly of simple molecular bricks into Sierpiński triangles
Pawel Szabelski and Damian Nieckarz 
Chem. Commun., 2014, Accepted Manuscript
DOI: 10.1039/C4CC01344A, Communication
From themed collection Systems Chemistry