CrystEngComm Blog

Scientists from Imperial College London, UK have made a novel hexacarboxylate organo-silicon molecule and used it in the construction of IMP-15–a Metal Organic Framework (MOF) material with pcu topology which is isoreticular to MOF-5 but with half the metal loading. Read more about IMP-15 in their recent Hot Communication in CrystEngComm:

An organosilicon hexacarboxylic acid and its use in the construction of a novel metal organic framework isoreticular to MOF-5
Robert P. Davies, Paul D. Lickiss, Karen Robertson and Andrew J. P. White
CrystEngComm, 2012, DOI: 10.1039/C1CE06091K

In their recent CrystEngComm Hot Article, Katarzyna Solanko and Andrew Bond, from the University of Southern Denmark, looked at solution crystallisations of 5-X-aspirin (X = ¼ Cl, Br) to investigate if the polymorphism was affected by the presence of analgous aspirin anhydride species. The group show that small changes in temperature when the compound is being made can lead to erratic and apparently irreproducible crystallisation results, especially if the impurities remain undetected.

Read the article itself for FREE, until mid-November, to find out more.

Influence of impurities on the crystallisation of 5-X-aspirin and 5-X-aspirin anhydride polymorphs (X = Cl, Br, Me)
Katarzyna A. Solanko and Andrew D. Bond.
CrystEngComm, 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C1CE06065A

Hot Communication just published in CrystEngComm: Polarity-dependent homo-epitaxy on (0001)-Zn and (0001)-O surfaces of cleaved ZnO microwires was investigated by in situ growth in ESEM and DFT simulations.

Read this article for free until the 6th October!

Click here to access: In situ growth and density-functional-theory study of polarity-dependent homo-epitaxial ZnO microwires
Rui Zhu, Qing Zhao, Jun Xu, Banggui Liu, Jingyun Gao, Jingmin Zhang, Wenguang Zhu, Hongjun Xu, Yanghui Sun, Qiang Fu, Li Chen and Dapeng Yu
CrystEngComm, 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C1CE05892D

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

A unique feature, which distinguishes some MOFs from conventional porous materials, is the ability to ‘breathe’ i.e. to expand or contract in response to external stimuli such as variation in temperature. Such flexible networks are also called ‘breathing’ MOFs. In their recent Hot Article Roland Fischer and his colleagues have  investigated the structural transformations of such breathing frameworks yielding valuable insights in the underlying mechanisms.

Read for free until the 20th August 2011

Multiple phase-transitions upon selective CO2 adsorption in an alkyl ether functionalized metal–organic framework—an in situ X-ray diffraction study
Sebastian Henke, D. C. Florian Wieland, Mikhail Meilikhov, Michael Paulus, Christian Sternemann, Kirill Yusenko and Roland A. Fischer
CrystEngComm, 2011, Advance Article DOI: 10.1039/C1CE05446E

In their recent CrystEngComm article Pierangelo Metrangolo, Giuseppe Resnati and co-workers discuss how fluorine can display a region of positive electrostatic potential when bound to residues which work as particularly strong electron withdrawing groups. Fluorine can thus function as a halogen bond donor and form complexes with lone-pair-containing neutral atoms and anions. Read more about the impact of this newly revealed aspect of fluorine behaviour in the communication below.

The fluorine atom as a halogen bond donor, viz. a positive site
Pierangelo Metrangolo, Jane S. Murray, Tullio Pilati, Peter Politzer, Giuseppe Resnati and Giancarlo Terraneo
CrystEngComm, 2011, Advance Article, DOI: 10.1039/C1CE05554B