Simon R. T. Neil, Deputy Editor

Author Archive

Professor Rahul Banerjee Wins Thomson Reuters Research Excellence – India Citation Award 2015

06 Oct 2015

We are delighted to announce that Professor Rahul Banerjee (Associate Editor, CrystEngComm) was recently selected as one of the winners of the Thomson Reuters Research Excellence – India Citation Awards 2015.

Through research citations within Web of Science^TM, the Awards identify and recognize India’s most prominent scientists and researchers for their outstanding and pioneering research and influential contribution to global R&D.

Congratulations, Professor Banerjee!

Professor Banerjee's Award
__Professor Banerjee (right) receives his Thomson
__Reuters Research Excellence – India Citation Award

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Call for papers: 2016 themed issues

29 Jun 2015

We are delighted to announce a new CrystEngCo mm themed issue to be published in 2016:

CrystEngComm

Solid State Photochemistry

Deadline: 1st April 2016
Guest Editors: Dr Jacqui Cole (University of Cambridge), Professor Masahiro Irie (Rikkyo University)

The issue will focus on photochemical reactions and photophysical structure and properties of solid-state materials, ranging from the crystalline state to interfacial structures that involve at least one solid phase.

Studies on photochemical reactions will include photochromic reactions, the photomechanical effect, light induced phase transitions, light-induced morphological changes, molecular machines and photoswitches, and spin crossover materials. Such studies can be applied to any crystalline material, including single crystals, microcrystalline powders and nanocrystals.

Studies on photophysical structure and properties of materials will focus on optoelectronic media, photovoltaic applications, non-linear optical effects, and other optical phenomena. Papers may concern bulk media or interfacial structures that include at least one solid phase. Results will describe relationships between chemical structure and photophysical function or feature some physical chemistry aspect of a solid-state photo-induced phenomenon. We are equally happy to consider experimental and/or computational studies within this arena.

Crystal engineering of composite materials
Guest Editor: Professor Kwangyeol Lee (Korea University).

Deadline: 12th April 2016

This themed issue will focus on crystal engineering of composite materials, particularly in the areas of energy conversion and energy storage, providing insights into the growth behaviour of these complex systems.

The issue will address different aspects of crystal design in/for hybrid materials, such as changes in crystal growth behaviour – namely, changes in morphology or phase, on different supports or by additional components in the system.

Do you work in the field of composite materials? If so, let us know using the link below.

How to submit

All types of manuscript – communications, full papers and Highlights, will be considered for publication. The manuscript should be prepared according to our article guidelines and submitted via our online system.

All manuscripts will be subject to normal peer review and inclusion in the themed issue will be at the discretion of the Guest Editors. Please indicate in your submission the name of the themed issue that you would like to be considered for.

Are you interested in contributing? Contact us for further details

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2nd ICSU/IUPAC Workshop on Crystal Engineering

27 Apr 2015

The 2nd ICSU/IUPAC Workshop on Crystal Engineering will be held in Como, Italy on August 30-September 1, 2015.

The Chairmen of the Workshop, Pierangelo Metrangolo and Giuseppe Resnati, invite you to participate in this memorable event.

This international workshop will also serve as the mid-term meeting of the ICSU project CONvINCE “CONcepts and termINology in Crystal Engineering” and of the IUPAC project no. 2012-044-1-100 “Basic Terminology of Crystal Engineering”. The objectives of these projects are to produce guidelines for terminology in the area of crystal engineering.

The program of the workshop will comprise invited lectures by internationally renowned leaders in the field. Poster presentations are also scheduled and opportunities are planned for young scientists’ networking with both peers and recognized leaders in the field.

Participation is free and limited to a maximum number of 150 attendees, which will be selected on a first come first served basis.

The deadline for registration and abstract submission is June 30, 2015.

Full details of the Workshop can be found here.
For more information, please contact the:
Scientific Secretariat: johanna.syvanen@polimi.it or the Organizing Secretariat: chiara.stefanetti@centrovolta.it

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IUPAC project meeting and workshop: Topology representations in coordination networks, MOFs and other crystalline materials

26 Mar 2015

A follow up to the IUPAC project on the somewhat controversial issue on terminology of metal-organic frameworks and coordination polymers deals with the question of how we describe and communicate the structures of MOFs, PCPs and related network forming compounds.

The use of topology is very efficient in describing, disseminating and even designing such new materials, and the IUPAC task group deals with the project: Terminology guidelines and database issues for topology representations in coordination networks, metal-organic frameworks and other crystalline materials. As it turns out, network topology is also important, albeit sadly neglected, for the group 14 allotropes and even polymorphs of water.

The task group invite all who are interested to a workshop in Samara, Russia 21-23 May 2015 under the devise ”Describe, Disseminate and Design”. The workshop will feature talks by prominent scientist highlighting the network topology approach from many different angles, from mathematics to chemical synthesis and will also help the task group to gather viewpoints from the community. There will also be a poster session.

You can register and submit an abstract until 30th April 2015.

If you are interested but can’t make it, why not send thoughts directly to the project chair, Lars Öhrström or on twitter @larsohrstrom #IUPACmof2

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Foiled again! One-pot hydrothermal route to freestanding copper foil

09 Feb 2015

The physical form of a compound affects its properties – one need only look at the explosion of research about nanosized materials in recent years to see the dramatic effects that size and shape can have on behaviour. Metal foams and foils with nanoporous structure have large surface-to-volume ratios, which make them valuable in a range of applications. Recently, Ming Li and colleagues, based in Shanghai, have developed a simple one-pot hydrothermal route to nanoporous copper foils that self-assemble in relatively short reaction times.

The mild hydrothermal route uses readily available starting materials, and ethylene glycol is employed as a reducing agent in the reaction. After 6 hours at 200°C the blue emulsion is transformed to a copper foil, which detaches itself from the Teflon wall of the autoclave liner.

The foil is thoroughly characterised and has a uniform thickness of approximately 1.4 microns, as seen in the SEM image below. A nanoporous structure can also be seen, accounted for by a mechanism of initial formation of Cu branches, which join together to form the foil as the reaction progresses. A thin coating of copper oxide on the surface makes the foils stable in air.

The as-synthesised copper foil and a close-up SEM image are shown below.

All so far so interesting, but what can such films be used for? The visible absorbance is higher than that of commercially available copper films owing to the nanostructure present. This means it can be used as an active substrate for surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). These substrates need to absorb light via surface plasmon resonance, an effect commonly seen in coinage metals. However, gold and silver have been found to be too expensive and too unstable, respectively, so cooper provides a high-performing low cost alternative.

Other potential applications include use as electrodes in batteries, solar cells or displays, and the authors hope that the method is applicable for the creation of other metal foils.

Find the full article here:

One-pot preparation of thin nanoporous copper foils with enhanced light absorption and SERS properties
Ming Li, Yanjie Su, Jiang Zhao, Huijuan Geng, Jing Zhang, Liling Zhang, Chao Yang and Yafei Zhang
CrystEngComm, 2015, 17, 1296-1304
DOI: 10.1039/C4CE01967A

Rachel Coulter is currently working on a PhD at the University of Liverpool, investigating near-infrared absorbing materials. Her interests include solvothermal synthesis, optical applications of inorganic compounds and synthesis of nanoparticles. She received an MChem from the University of Edinburgh in 2011, which included an Erasmus year in Lille, France.

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Conference Report: 3rd China-India-Singapore Symposium on Crystal Engineering

30 Jan 2015

The 3rd China-India-Singapore (CIS) Symposium on Crystal Engineering was recently held at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, 8–10 December, 2014.

The CIS symposium series on “Crystal Engineering” was conceived so that researchers from China, India and Singapore could meet, discuss, present and exchange their research work to accelerate the growth of crystal engineering.

The symposium series aims to discuss and acknowledge recent advances in the field of crystal engineering in the south Asian region. The 1st CIS Symposium on Crystal Engineering was held at National University of Singapore (NUS) from 30 July –
2 August, 2010. The 2nd CIS Symposium on Crystal Engineering was held at Guangzhou, China, 20–23 November, 2012.

The 3rd CIS Symposium on Crystal Engineering was recently organized by Professors Gautam. R. Desiraju and S. Natarajan at the Solid State and Structural Chemistry Unit, at the Indian Institute of Science. A total of 22 researchers from different institutes in China, India and Singapore presented their work, ranging from the research areas of porous materials and pharmaceutical solids to intermolecular interactions and computational chemistry. This symposium highlighted some of the recent developments in the field of organic, inorganic, pharmaceutical and organic-semiconductor materials achieved through the applications of crystal engineering.

3rd China-India-Singapore (CIS) Symposium on Crystal Engineering

The 3rd CIS Symposium on Crystal Engineering started with the welcome address from Prof. S. Natarajan (IISc, India) followed by inaugural speeches by Prof. Gautam R. Desiraju (IISc, India) and Prof. Shilun Qiu (Jilin University, China). This was followed by the first scientific lecture by Prof. X.M. Chen (Sun Yat-Sen University, China) on “Metal Organic Frameworks for Molecular Oxygen Sensing”. Prof. T.N. Guru Row (IISc Bangalore, India), Prof. A. Ramanan (IIT Delhi, India), and Prof. Cheng Peng (Nankai University, China) described the use of the crystal engineering concepts towards understanding the a) relevance of intermolecular interactions, b) structure and properties of metal carbarboxylate-based supramolecular assemblies and c) rational design of molecular magnetic materials. Other speakers of the first day were Prof. S. Aipitamula (A*STAR, Singapore), Prof. P. Dastidar (IACS, India), Prof. C. Malla Reddy (IISER Kolkata, India), Prof. P. Thilagar (IISc Bangalore, India), and Prof. P. Venugopalan (Punjab University, India).

On the second day of the meeting, Prof. J.J. Vittal (National University of Singapore, Singapore) outlined an interesting project on “Crystal Engineering of Photoreactive and Photosalient Crystals”. This was followed by the scientific lectures by Profs. Lu Tong-Bu (Sun Yet-Sen University, China), R. Banerjee (CSIR-NCL, India), V.R. Pedireddi (IIT Bhubaneswar, India), P.S. Mukherjee (IISc Bangalore, India), Su Cheng-Yong (Sun Yet-Sen University, China), J.N. Moorthy (IIT Kanpur, India), T.K. Maji (JNCASR, Bangalore, India), A. Nangia (University of Hyderabad, India), B. K. Saha (Pondicherry University, India) and Daliang Zhang (Jilin University, China).

Prof. Shilun Qiu, (Jilin University, China) delivered a stimulating talk on gas storage in metal-organic frameworks and covalent-organic frameworks during the final day of the meeting. His talk was followed by the scientific lectures by Profs. K. Biradha (IIT Kharagpur, India), and T.S Thakur (Central Drug Research Institute, India).

The next meeting will be held in 2016 as a South and East Asia Conference on Crystal Engineering, SEACCE. This meeting will aim to popularize the idea of crystal engineering in countries such as Bangladesh, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam. A resolution was signed by the participants from China, India and Singapore. The next meeting is likely to be held in Nepal, Sri Lanka or Bhutan in the summer of 2016.

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New web interface for viewing and downloading crystal structures

27 Jan 2015

Over on our eScience pages, Aileen Day has blogged about linking 2D structures in ChemSpider to the corresponding experimental 3D structures in the Cambridge Structural Database (CSD).

As well as these links, you can go also go directly from Royal Society of Chemistry journal articles to corresponding entries in the CSD. These links now resolve to a brand new interface over at the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC), where anyone can immediately see interactive 3D visualisations of structures along with chemical interpretations.

The best example of this is probably a recent structure of vanillic acid and theophylline (see the image below), a flavoursome combination, as a form of vanillic acid gives, yes, you guessed it, the flavour of vanilla, whereas theophylline is found in cocoa beans. This happens to be the 750,000^th entry added to the CSD! It’s a structure reported in a CrystEngComm article by Ayesha Jacobs and Francoise Amombo Noa from the Cape Peninsula University of Technology in South Africa.

This new web interface is great news for our readers, as it provides a much richer user experience for viewing CSD structures after clicking on links within Royal Society of Chemistry journal articles. You can also download the structures, along with all of the available experimental data. You can do this from all of the platforms that you use to read Royal Society of Chemistry articles, including your mobile devices. And it’s up to the minute – as soon as crystal structures are published in a Royal Society of Chemistry journal, the corresponding entries are made available through an automated feed from us to the CCDC. Give it a try!

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Communicating Crystallography

21 Jan 2015

The Chemical Crystallography Group of the British Crystallographic Association recently held its 2014 autumn meeting — “Communicating Crystallography” — in conjunction with the Royal Society of Chemistry, on 19th November 2014 at Burlington House, London.

With 2014 being the UNESCO International Year of Crystallography, there was no better time to have a meeting to showcase and discuss crystallography-based outreach and education.

Three sessions of talks encompassed the theme of “Communicating Crystallography” from educational, publishing and data presentation points of view. The session on publishing was delivered by the Royal Society of Chemistry and showed how crystallography (and chemistry) can be disseminated through a range of channels — journals, databases and social media.

Topics covered during the sessions included: outreach to students and the general public; communication of results in journals, databases and social media; and curation of data. The insights gained from the meeting have relevance well beyond the confines of chemical crystallography.

From left to right: Simon J. Coles,
Guy Jones, Serin Dabb and David Sait
present at “Communicating Crystallography”.

The speakers and the audience were excellently engaged, creating a very successful and enjoyable meeting. Thanks go to all involved!

View the talks from the meeting here.

This Blog post is based on material kindly provided by Carl Schwalbe (Aston University), Natalie Johnson (University of Newcastle) and Simon J. Coles (University of Southampton; Chair of the Chemical Crystallography Group).

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Pine-like manganese dioxide for use in battery anodes

02 Dec 2014

In their recent CrystEngComm paper, Sun and co-workers produce manganese dioxide particles with different shapes using electrospun organic template molecules and hydrothermal synthesis. Using fibres of polyacetonitrile and carbon results in ‘pine like’ nanorods, which demonstrate promising electrochemical performance for use as an anode material in lithium ion batteries.

Electrospinning — drawing fibres out of solution using an electrical charge — is used here to create organic precursors that are used as templates in hydrothermal synthesis to create unique nanostructures. First, manganese dioxide nanorods are produced and, depending on the template, can be solid or hollow. Then, further heat treatment gives 3D ‘pine like’ spikey structures resulting from the growth of small nanorods perpendicular to the first direction of growth.

An example of manganese dioxide α-MnO₂ ‘pine like’ nanostructures from Sun and co-workers is shown below.

An example of manganese dioxide α-MnO2 ‘pine like’ nanostructures from Sun and co-workers.

Lithium ion batteries are all around us in electronic devices and are composed of 3 parts — a cathode, an electrolyte and an anode. Transition metal oxides, such as manganese dioxide, have been widely studied as anode materials owing to their stability and desirable electrochemical characteristics such as high capacity and high rate performance.

The large surface area and large contact interfaces for lithium ion transport results in potential application for these manganese dioxide nanostructures as an anode material. High reversible capacity and retained good performance after numerous cycles confirm this, and the results are comparable to other leading materials. The authors hope that this method can now be applied to other transition metal oxides.

Read more detail in the full article at:

Morphology and crystallinity-controlled synthesis of MnO₂ hierarchical nanostructures and their application in lithium ion batteries
Dongfei Sun, Jiangtao Chen, Juan Yanga and Xingbin Yan
CrystEngComm, 2014, 16, 10476-10484
DOI: 10.1039/C4CE01604A

Rachel Coulter is currently working on a PhD at the University of Liverpool investigating near infrared absorbing materials. Her interests include solvothermal synthesis, optical applications of inorganic compounds and synthesis of nanoparticles. She received an MChem from the University of Edinburgh in 2011, which included an Erasmus year in Lille, France.

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