CrystEngComm Blog

This month saw the occasion of the 3rd International Symposium on Halogen Bonding, held in Greenville, South Carolina and chaired by Professor Bill Pennington (Clemson University). The event was a huge success, attracting over 90 participants from 21 countries, who came to discuss the latest developments in this exciting field of crystal engineering. Covering topics ranging from fundamentals like the refinement of the σ- and π-hole model to applications in fields such as pharmaceuticals, catalysis, and functional materials, the discussions were broad and vibrant – in part due to a strong showing of early career researchers. Three such promising academics presented in a special Rising Stars session, which CrystEngComm was pleased to support.  

Presenting in this session was (pictured, left-to-right) Rafael Nunes of the University of Lisbon, Professor Davita L. Watkins of the University of Mississippi, and Dr Filip Topic of McGill University, they each received discounted registration and a personal invitation to submit to CrystEngComm.

Immediately prior to the symposium was a satellite workshop on the IUPAC project to characterize chalcogen, pnictogen, and tetrel bonds – analogous interactions in which Group 14-16 element act as the electrophilic sites. Organized and Chaired by Professor Giuseppe Resnati (Politecnico Milano), the workshop featured a lively poster session and the RSC provided awards for two of the researchers presenting their work. The CrystEngComm prize went to Patrick Wonner of Ruhr-University-Bochum for his poster entitled “Carbon-halogen Bond Activation by Selenium-Based Chalcogen Bonding“, while the NJC prize went to Asia Marie Riel of Université de Rennes for her poster entitled “Isolated and Expanded Chalcogen Bond Halide Networks” (both pictured below).

	Left-to-Right: Giuseppe Resnati (Chair of IUPAC Workshop), Khadijatul Kobra (winner of AICIng poster prize), Patrick M.J. Szell (winner of ACS poster prize), Asia Marie Riel (winner of RSC NJC poster prize), Patrick Wonner (winner of RSC CrystEngComm poster prize), Alex Elmi (winner of Springer poster prize), and Bill Pennington (Chair of ISXB-3).

CrystEngComm offers a huge congratulations to all Rising Stars and poster prize winners!

The capability of the natural environment to absorb the waste products of human enterprise and industry is being put under great strain by the growth in the world’s population and economy. Environmental remediation – the decontamination of soil, air, and water – and waste stream treatment are of the highest priority.

From carbon dioxide capture by MOFs and other porous materials, to the photocatalytic degradation of organic pollutants by crystalline nanomaterials, our new post-publication collection showcases recent work that demonstrates how Crystal Engineering is being applied to solve one of humanity’s most pressing challenges.

Here are a selection of the articles and ‘Highlight’ reviews included in the collection:

Articles

A novel methoxy-decorated metal–organic framework exhibiting high acetylene and carbon dioxide storage capacities

Xing Duan, Yuanjing Cui, Yu Yang and Guodong Qian

CrystEngComm, 2017,19,  1464-1469 10.1039/C6CE02291J A new microporous metal–organic framework with optimized pore space and open metal sites has been realized, exhibiting high acetylene and carbon dioxide storage capacities.

Capture of volatile iodine by newly prepared and characterized non-porous [CuI]_n-based coordination polymers

Abbas Tarassoli, Valiollah Nobakht, Elham Baladi, Lucia Carlucci and Davide M. Proserpio 

CrystEngComm, 2017,19, 6116-6126 10.1039/C7CE01193H Four new non-porous copper(I) iodide coordination polymers have been synthesized and demonstrate volatile iodine capture with simultaneous fluorescence quenching.

Luminescent sensing and photocatalytic degradation properties of an uncommon (4,5,5)-connected 3D MOF based on 3,5-di(3′,5′-dicarboxylphenyl)benzoic acid

Jun-Cheng Jin, Xi-Ren Wu, Zhi-Dong Luo, Fang-Yuan Deng, Jian-Qiang Liu, Amita Singh and Abhinav Kumar  

CrystEngComm, 2017,19, 4368-4377  10.1039/C7CE01012E An uncommon microporous MOF 1 used as fluorescent chemosensor for NACs and as photocatalyst.

Highlights

Metal–organic frameworks with Lewis acidity: synthesis, characterization, and catalytic applications

Zhigang Hu and Dan Zhao

Hierarchically structured magnesium based oxides: synthesis strategies and applications in organic pollutant remediation

Lekha Sharma and Rita Kakkar

Hollow Cu_xO (x = 2, 1) micro/nanostructures: synthesis, fundamental properties and applications

Shaodong Sun, Qing Yang, Shuhua Liang and Zhimao Yang

See the full collection here.

Submit your research or reviews on crystal engineering of materials for environmental applications to CrystEngComm – see our author guidelines for information on our article types or find out more about the advantages of publishing in a Royal Society of Chemistry journal.