CrystEngComm Blog

The scientists in this CrystEngComm Hot article have developed an impressive way to seperate carboxylic acids from fuels.

This is especially important with fuels produced from renewable biomass, where product removal enhances microbial growth and production. But the conventionally used technique to remove products by inducing crystallisation, does not work efficiently for carboxylic acids.

Johan Urbanus and colleagues based in the Netherlands, used electrochemistry to manipulate the pH to obtain neutral carboxylic acids, and used co-crystals to control the solubility to remove them. As the referees of this paper commented, this is an elegant use of electrochemical principles in cocrystallisation and product removal.

READ FOR FREE until 12th January

Electrochemically induced co-crystallization for product removal
Johan Urbanus, C. P. Mark Roelands, Jaroslaw Mazurek, Dirk Verdoes and Joop H. ter Horst
CrystEngComm, 2011, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C0CE00284D, Communication

In this CrystEngComm Hot article, (001)-oriented BaTiO3/LaNiO3 superlattics are made by a radio frequency sputtering method.

Liang Qiao and Xiaofang Bi noticed a dielectric anomaly in their superlattices; they observed that the  dielectric maxima shifted towards higher temperatures with an increase in frequency. Read on to see how they explain their results, and to find out more about the dielectric properties and phase transition characteristics of their BaTiO3/LaNiO3 superlattices.

Dielectric phase transition and relaxor behavior in BaTiO3/LaNiO3 superlattice
Liang Qiao and Xiaofang Bi
CrystEngComm, 2011, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C0CE00665C, Paper

In this CrystEngComm Hot article, scientists at Harbin Normal University, China, made ZnO nanoplates by introducing Al³⁺ to change the growth and thickness of the nanostructures. Their method is particularly interesting as they do not use a template or surfactant.

One-step hydrothermal synthesis and optical properties of aluminium doped ZnO hexagonal nanoplates on a zinc substrate
Jia Liu, Lingling Xu, Bo Wei, Wei Lv, Hong Gao and Xitian Zhang
CrystEngComm, 2011, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C0CE00704H, Communication

For the first time, metal-organic nanotubes have been made using a hydrogen-bonding self-assembly approach.

Jianlin Han and Yi Pan and colleagues from Nanjing University, China, used specially designed ligands to control the hydrogen bonding, constructing 2D layered structures that self-assembled into nanotubes. Such materials are exciting for their potential for use as molecular capillaries and sieves, and for use in biological models.

This CrystEngComm Hot article is free to read for a limited period.

Hydrogen-bonding self-assembly of two dimensional (2D) layer structures generating metal–organic nanotubes
Hailong Sun, Haibo Mei, Guanghui An, Jianlin Han and Yi Pan
CrystEngComm, 2011, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C0CE00471E , Communication

READ FOR FREE until January

In this CrystEngComm Hot article highly uniform sodium rare-earth fluoride nanocrystals were found to  demonstrate red, green, and blue up-conversion luminescence.

Read more about how Qibin Yang and colleagues at Xiangtan University did it, and to discover the various pills, rods, spheres, tubes, and plate shaped crystals they created.

High uniformity and monodispersity of sodium rare-earth fluoride nanocrystals: controllable synthesis, shape evolution and optical properties
Songjun Zeng, Guozhong Ren, Changfu Xu and Qibin Yang
CrystEngComm, 2011, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C0CE00325E , Paper

READ FOR FREE until 15th December 2010

Kraig E. Wheeler and co-workers at Eastern Illinois University have produced a rare example of  an engineered, chiral, bimolecular solid-state reaction.

Read more about these ‘fish hook’ shaped molecules being fashioned into supramolecular dimers in this CrystEngComm Hot article.

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Enantiocontrolled solid-state photodimerizations via a chiral sulfonamidecinnamic acid
Kraig A. Wheeler, Joshua D. Wiseman and Rebecca C. Grove
CrystEngComm, 2011, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C0CE00516A , Communication

This CrystEngComm Hot article demonstrates that chromatography can be used to look at the interaction between crystals and their impurities so that their impact on crystal growth can be judged.

Ryan E. Sours and colleagues looked at the biomineral crystals calcite and calcium oxolate monohydrate, and assessed the relative binding affinities of various organic impurities.

This manuscript is part of a themed issue on Crystal Growth, guest edited by Professor Jennifer Swift, due for publication early in 2011.

Chromatographic determination of impurity binding affinities on biomineral crystals
Randall C. Mazzarino, Tissa J. Thomas and Ryan E. Sours
CrystEngComm, 2011, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C0CE00454E , Paper