Guoqing Zhang, Xuepeng Zhang and their team at the University of Science and Technology of China first intended to construct a series of organic ligands for water-based acrylic paints. By performing a routine Claisen condensation reaction between a ketone and an ester, they obtained a number of pyridine-substituted β-diketone compounds as fluffy crystals, with varying positions of nitrogen-substitution in the pyridine ring.
Interested? The full story can be read in Chemistry World.
The original article can be read below and is free to access until 9th June 2017:
Curved fractal structures of pyridine-substituted β-diketone crystals
Zongzheng Qian, Dongxue Li, Tongqing Xie, Xuepeng Zhang,* Yang He, Yuejie Ai and Guoqing Zhang*
CrystEngComm, 2017, 19, 2283-2287
DOI:10.1039/C7CE00462A