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Unique polyhedral 26-facet CuS hollow architectures decorated with nanotwinned, mesostructural and single crystalline shells
Shaodong Sun, Xiaoping Song, Chuncai Kong, Shuhua Liang, Bingjun Ding and Zhimao Yang
CrystEngComm, 2011, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C1CE05563A
In this CrystEngComm Highlight article Colin Seaton from the University of Manchester looks at the crystal engineering of co-crystals between carboxylic acids. Seaton looks at how Hammett substitution constants can help in the design and creation of multi-component crystalline materials.
Read the full review article to find out more…
Creating carboxylic acid co-crystals: The application of Hammett substitution constants
Colin C. Seaton
CrystEngComm, 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C1CE05645J
To find out more about about Dr Seaton’s research read his recent CrystEngComm paper:
Epitaxial growth of polymorphic systems: The case of sulfathiazole
CrystEngComm, 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C1CE05585B
We are very pleased to announce the appointment of Professor Nicola Pinna to the CrystEngComm Editorial Board,
Professor Nicola Pinna, based at the University of Aveiro, Portugal, and Seoul National University, Korea, has research interests in the area of nanostructured materials. His research achievements include work to develop new synthetic approaches to allow a more generalized synthesis strategy to inorganic nanomaterials via a ‘toolbox’ of well-known chemical reactions which can be used to prepare target nanoparticles using a sequence of predictable synthesis steps.
Professor Nicola Pinna
Nicola studied physical chemistry at the Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris, and received his Ph.D. in 2001. He then moved to the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society in Berlin, and a year later, in 2003, moved to the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam, followed by a year at the Martin Luther University, Halle-Wittenberg, as an Assistant Professor of Inorganic Chemistry, in 2005. Since 2006 he has been a researcher at the University of Aveiro, and since 2009 has held a joint position at Seoul National University.
Find out more about Nicola’s research at his website and check out some of his recent papers below:
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
Supramolecular synthons based on halogen bonding have been identified as excellent tools for the design and synthesis of supramolecular architectures. This growing field in crystal engineering has led to many discoveries of new and exciting intermolecular bonding motifs.
In this advance article, Kari Raatikainen and Kari Rissanen from the University of Jyväskylä report extremely short X···N synthons (where X= Br, I) from the crystal structures of N-haloimides with a series of amines and identify a unique example of a halogen bond based tubular material.
X-ray structure analyses reveal that X···N (X = Br, I) distances range from 2.347 Å to 2.596 Å. These unusually short halogen bond distances suggest an extremely polarized halogen atom, which allows exceptionally large overlap of Van der Waals volumes with the donor atom. The tetrahedral arrangement of N-iodosuccinimide with tetrafunctional hexamethylenetetramine exhibits these very strong halogen bonds, as well as multiple weak C-H···O hydrogen bonds, to form infinite channels with 7.31 Å × 6.74 Å diameter along the crystallographic c axis. The properties of this complex as a porous material are currently under investigation.
Interaction between amines and N-haloimides: a new motif for unprecedentedly short Br···N and I···N halogen bonds
Kari Raatikainen and Kari Rissanen
CrystEngComm, 2011, Advance Article DOI:10.1039/C1CE05447C
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 classical crystalline motif categorizations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) have gained
interest as of late as it was discovered that the ‘‘defining’’ crystallographic axis was not always the
‘‘shortest crystallographic axis’’ as previously thought and that systems under pressure would exhibit
a motif’s typical axis length but not its typical interplanar angle (theta).
In this CrystEngComm paper Bohdan Schatschneider and his team use Hirshfeld surfaces to investigate the relative percent of intermolecular close contact interactions existing within the four established crystalline PAH motifs under ambient and high pressures. It was discovered that in fact the fraction of C/C interactions (C/C%) coupled with theta could ultimately define the structural motifs. Read more for free until the 5th September 2011.
A new parameter for classification of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon crystalline motifs: a Hirshfeld surface investigation
Bohdan Schatschneider, Jacob Phelps and Sebastian Jezowski
CrystEngComm, 2011, Advance Article DOI: 10.1039/C1CE05560G
Although pyrite has been made in many morphological forms, such as films, nanocubes and nanowires, microspheres have never been made …until now. Qi-Zhi Yao, Gen-Tao Zhou and their team based in Heifei, China have used a microwave-assisted polyol method to produce uniform and monodisperse pyrite microspherolites.
Monodisperse nano-/microspheres have attracted increasing attention because of their promising applications in optical and photonic crystals and microlenses and can be used as seed particles for the core-shell and hollow spheres. Read more in this recent CrystEngComm Hot Article.
Microwave-assisted controlled synthesis of monodisperse pyrite microspherolites
Mao-Lin Li, Qi-Zhi Yao, Gen-Tao Zhou, Xiao-Fei Qu, Cheng-Fa Mu and Sheng-Quan Fu
CrystEngComm, 2011, Advance Article DOI: 10.1039/C1CE05478C
