We have updated our reviewer recommended ‘HOT articles’ for 2024.
We update our HOT articles collection quarterly and have made the selected articles free to access until 12 August 2024! This collection represents the top 10% of research published in CrystEngComm between April – June 2024.
Make the most of the free to access period by browsing the collection today!
We are delighted to announce that Christian Doonan (University of Adelaide, Australia) and C. Malla Reddy (Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad, India) have been appointed as Co-Editors-in-Chief of CrystEngComm. They succeed Pierangelo Metrangolo who served as the journal’s Chair for six years. We would like to thank Pierangelo for his unwavering support of the journal during his term and look forward to working with Christan and Malla over the years ahead.
This joint appointment, the first in the journal’s history, will enable us to draw upon the expertise and networks of two world-leading researchers in the fields of crystal engineering and functional materials.
Under their leadership, the journal will seek to expand into new and exciting areas of research. CrystEngComm will highlight key advances in the fields of crystal engineering and crystal growth and provide a vital forum for the development of innovating crystalline materials science.
Having both served the journal as Associate Editors for many years, their knowledge of the journal will be used to build upon its history and strengthen its position and scope over the coming years.
Christian and Malla share their views on the current research landscape and their enthusiasm to work together to lead the journal into new and exciting areas:
“Crystal Engineering concepts are ubiquitous in the chemical sciences and underpin breakthroughs in a broad range of research areas. Over many years CrystEngComm has developed an international reputation for the publication of innovative scientific research and maintaining exceptional standards of scientific rigor. I am delighted to have the opportunity to work with Professor Reddy, and an exceptionally dedicated and accomplished editorial team, to ensure that CrystEngComm is the primary destination for high-impact science focussed on the design and understanding of crystalline materials and to identify and develop new areas of growth for the journal.” Christian Doonan, January 2024
“Crystal Engineering is now a mature field, providing exciting opportunities for the design of novel materials using sustainable routes, thanks to the progress made over last three to four decades. With the ever-expanding database of crystal structures and growing influence of computational tools supported by artificial intelligence and machine learning, we are here to witness unprecedented levels of predictive power to find novel materials. It is an absolute delight for me to join Professor Doonan, the board members and editorial team of the journal. Utilising CrystEngComm’s strong roots in the community, we will together steer its growth to reach new heights.” C. Malla Reddy, January 2024
C. Malla Reddy is the first researcher based in India to serve as an Editor-in-Chief of an RSC journal, and we are looking forward to working with Malla to continue to support all researchers, in India and beyond, to publish their best science.
Christian Doonan’s expertise and international collaborations complement those of Malla and, taken together, will enable us to understand and respond to the needs of our global readership and authorship, encouraging submissions from leaders in the field.
Take a look at recent work from both Christian and Malla:
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CrystEngComm, 2023,25, 3164-3170
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CrystEngComm, 2023,25, 6539-6548
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We are delighted to introduce Professor Changquan Calvin Sun (University of Minnesota, USA) and Professor Bin Zhao (Nankai University, China) as the latest members of the CrystEngComm Editorial Board!
| Changquan Calvin Sun is Professor of Pharmaceutics at the University of Minnesota, USA, from which he received his PhD in Pharmaceutics in 2000. After spending 8 years in the pharmaceutical industry, he joined the Department of Pharmaceutics as an Assistant Professor and was promoted to Full Professor in 2017. Professor Sun’s research focuses on efficient formulation design of high-quality tablet products through the appropriate application of materials science and engineering principles. Two main areas of his current research are crystal and particle engineering for superior pharmaceutical properties and, fundamental understanding of pharmaceutical processes, including powder compaction. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), a Fellow of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS), and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. Professor Sun received the 2019 Ralph Shangraw Memorial Award from the International Pharmaceutical Excipient Council (IPEC) and the 2022 David J. W. Grant Distinguished Scholar Award in Basic Pharmaceutics from the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Technology and Education (NIPTE).
Professor Sun has given his insight and thoughts on the future of the field of crystal engineering with regard to pharmaceutical research and the role of CrystEngComm: “Crystal engineering has been proven to be effective for modifying solid-state properties of molecules. This is attractive for overcoming problems in several fields, including pharmaceutical development. A major opportunity for advancing crystal engineering research is the development of reliable computational tools that can guide efficient design and preparation of new crystals with desired properties. To achieve this goal, quantitative crystal structure – properties relationship needs to be further developed. In this context, CrystEngComm plays a central role in terms of developing and defining a highly collaborative and prolific crystal engineering community through offering a platform for disseminating cutting edge research that meets a high, quality standard.” |
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Bin Zhao is a Distinguished Professor at Nankai University. He received his PhD degree from Nankai University in 2004 and has worked as a Full Professor at the Department of Chemistry since 2009. His current research interests focus on the construction of complicated metal clusters and structure, luminescence and catalysis of cluster-based coordination polymers, as well as their applications in the fields of energy, environment and health, such as the conversion and utilization of CO2, water splitting, luminescent probes etc. The related research won the support of the National Outstanding Youth Science Fund. Bin Zhao has published over 180 research papers and has won various awards including the National Hundred Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award (2006), the Chinese Chemical Society Prize for Young Scientists (2006), the Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University (2007) and the Youth Science and Technology Innovation Leader (2017).
Professor Zhao has also given his insight and thoughts on the role of CrystEngComm and the importance of crystal engineering in materials science research: “In the field of chemistry and materials science, crystal engineering is an indispensable subject that helps us explore the structures of substances, the design of novel crystalline materials, and the relation amongst structure and properties. Nowadays, crystalline materials such as MOFs are under widespread investigation for their outstanding performance in the areas of catalysis, gas adsorption, chemical sensing and so on. As a result crystal engineering will be under prosperous development. CrystEngComm is a well-known specialized journal about designing and understanding of solid-state and crystalline materials. Huge amounts of impressive crystalline structures with interesting property and design strategies have been published in this journal, which plays a critical role in the crystal engineering community and will get increasing attention in the future.” |
Browse a selection of recent articles by Professor Zhao and Professor Sun
| The different magnetic relaxation behaviors in [Fe(CN)6]3− or [Co(CN)6]3− bridged 3d–4f heterometallic compounds
Ruirui Wang, Haili Wang, Juan Wang, Feifei Bai, Yue Ma, Licun Li, Qinglun Wang, Bin Zhao and Peng Cheng CrystEngComm, 2020, 22, 2998-3004 |
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| Cocrystal engineering of pharmaceutical solids: therapeutic potential and challenges
Si Nga Wong, Yu Chee Sonia Chen, Bianfei Xuan, Changquan Calvin Sun and Shing Fung Chow CrystEngComm, 2021, 23, 7005-7038 |
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| Enhancing the energy barrier of dysprosium(III) single-molecule magnets by tuning the magnetic interactions through different N-oxide bridging ligands
Juan Wang, Mingfang Yang, Juan Sun, Hui Li, Jinjin Liu, Qinglun Wang, Licun Li, Yue Ma, Bin Zhao and Peng Cheng CrystEngComm, 2019, 21, 6219-6225 |
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| Profoundly improved photostability of dimetronidazole by cocrystallization
Xinghui Hao, Jinhui Li, Chenguang Wang, Xinghua Zhao, Xin He and Changquan Calvin Sun CrystEngComm, 2022, 24, 6165-6171 |
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Please submit your primary research 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.
We have updated our reviewer recommended ‘HOT articles’ for 2022.
We update our HOT articles collection quarterly and have made the selected articles free to access until 18 November 2022! This collection represents the top 10% of research published in CrystEngComm between July – September 2022.
Make the most of the free to access period by browsing the collection today!
Following the Editor’s collection on Computer Aided Solid Form Design published in 2020, we are delighted to share with you a further, recently commissioned collection of articles also focusing on Computer Aided Solid Form Design, again guest edited by Editorial Board Member Susan Reutzel-Edens, The Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre, UK.
These articles are free to access until February 28th 2022 and we hope you enjoy reading them.
Selected articles:
Crystal structure prediction of energetic materials and a twisted arene with Genarris and GAtor
Imanuel Bier, Dana O’Connor, Yun-Ting Hsieh, Wen Wen, Anna M. Hiszpanski, T. Yong-Jin Han and Noa Marom
CrystEngComm, 2021, 23, 6023-6038. DOI: 10.1039/ D1CE00745A
First global analysis of the GSK database of small molecule crystal structures
Leen N. Kalash, Jason C. Cole, Royston C. B. Copley, Colin M. Edge, Alexandru A. Moldovan, Ghazala Sadiq and Cheryl L. Doherty
CrystEngComm, 2021, 23, 5430-5442. DOI: 10.1039/ D1CE00665G
The trimorphism of 3-hydroxybenzoic acid: an experimental and computational study
Doris E. Braun
CrystEngComm, 2021, 23, 2513-2519. DOI: 10.1039/ D1CE00159K
Meet the Editor
Susan Reutzel-Edens was a senior research advisor in Small Molecule Design & Development at Eli Lilly and Company and adjunct professor at Purdue University. She earned her PhD at the University of Minnesota (1991) under the direction of the late Professor Margaret C. Etter. After, she joined Eli Lilly where she founded the solid form design programme. In 2021, she joined the CCDC as Head of Science.
For two decades she led a team of cross-functional scientists charged with finding commercially-viable crystalline forms for small-molecule drug products. She has contributed to the development of more than 150 compounds, is a named inventor on 12 US patents, and has published over 50 papers and book chapters on key aspects of solid form development.
Susan’s research interests include crystal polymorphism, materials design and engineering, crystal nucleation and growth, structure-property relationships, crystal structure prediction and digital design of drug products. She was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2018 and currently serves on the CrystEngComm Editorial Board. She is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of Crystal Growth & Design and Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences.
About CrystEngComm
Published by the Royal Society of Chemistry and with a truly international Editorial Board, CrystEngComm is the forum for the design and understanding of crystalline materials. We welcome studies on the investigation of molecular behaviour within crystals, control of nucleation and crystal growth, engineering of crystal structures, and construction of crystalline materials with tuneable properties and functions.
We invite you to submit your research to CrystEngComm and give your work the global visibility it deserves.
To keep up to date with the latest articles and other journal news, sign up to the e-alerts.
We are delighted to share with you our latest collection of recently published articles focusing on Rare Earth Materials handpicked by Associate Editor, Dongfeng Xue, Multiscale Crystal Materials Research Center, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, CAS, China
Rare earth materials play a key role in many practical applications such as catalysts, lasers, luminescence, magnetism, and sensors, which are of great interest to the community. Crystallisation involves two continuous stages (including nucleation and crystal growth) when preparing rare earth materials, therefore, crystal engineering strategies may stimulate much more innovative ideas when using rare earth elements as powerful functional sources or modifiers in the scale of the whole system. Rare earth elements have f-orbitals and f-electrons that possess specific coordination abilities with a wide range of coordination numbers from 2 to 16, which provide many opportunities to create novel structures and functions.
These articles are all free to access until January 31st, 2022 and we hope you enjoy reading them.
We also invite you to submit your research to CrystEngComm to give your work the global visibility it deserves.
Selected articles:
| Trends in rare earth thiophosphate syntheses: Rb3Ln(PS4)2 (Ln = La, Ce, Pr), Rb3−xNaxLn(PS4)2 (Ln = Ce, Pr; x = 0.50, 0.55), and RbEuPS4 obtained by molten flux crystal growth
Logan S. Breton, Mark D. Smith and Hans-Conrad zur Loye |
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| From [B6O13]8− to [GaB5O13]8− to [Ga{B5O9(OH)}{BO(OH)2}]2−: synthesis, structure and nonlinear optical properties of new metal borates
Qi-Ming Qiu and Guo-Yu Yang |
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| Bridgman growth and characterization of a HoCa4O(BO3)3 crystal
Xinchao He, Zhigang Sun, Xiaoniu Tu, Sheng Wang, Kainan Xiong, Hongbing Chen, Xiaoyan Zhang, Liming Shen and Yanqing Zheng CrystEngComm, 2021, 23, 4833-4839 |
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Meet the Editor
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Dongfeng Xue is a Professor at the Multiscale Crystal Materials Research Center, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China. He received his PhD in inorganic chemistry at Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, CAS, in 1998. Following postdoctoral studies at the Universität Osnabrück, University of Ottawa and the National Institute for Materials Science in Tsukuba, he was promoted to full professor in 2001 at Dalian University of Technology, China. In 2011, he returned to Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry to assume his professorship in materials chemistry, as the director of State Key Laboratory of Rare Earth Resource Utilization during 2015-2019. In 2020, he moved to Shandong University as the director of State Key Laboratory of Crystal Materials. In 2021, he created Multiscale Crystal Materials Research Center at Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology. His research interests focus on multiscale crystallization of inorganic matter for energy and optical applications. He has published more than 500 papers and book chapters, and holds around 20 patents. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, a Corresponding Member of the European Academy of Arts, Sciences and Humanities (EAASH, Paris). |
About CrystEngComm
Published by the Royal Society of Chemistry and with a truly international Editorial Board, CrystEngComm is the forum for the design and understanding of crystalline materials. We welcome studies on the investigation of molecular behaviour within crystals, control of nucleation and crystal growth, engineering of crystal structures, and construction of crystalline materials with tuneable properties and functions.
To keep up to date with the latest articles and other journal news, sign up to the e-alerts.
We are delighted to share with you our latest themed collection Crystal Growth of Nanomaterials. This themed issue is focused on recent advances in the understanding and control of crystal growth mechanisms and processes of nanomaterials and was guest edited by Professor Dongfeng Xue, Multiscale Crystal Materials Research Center, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China; Professor Georg Garnweitner, Institute for Particle Technology and Laboratory for Emerging Nanometrology, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Germany and Professor Kwangyeol Lee, Department of Chemistry, Research Institute for Natural Sciences, Korea University, Republic of Korea.
Selected articles from the issue:
| Colloidal chemical bottom-up synthesis routes of pnictogen (As, Sb, Bi) nanostructures with tailored properties and applications: a summary of the state of the art and main insights Stefanos Mourdikoudis and Zdeněk Sofer https://doi.org/10.1039/D0CE01766C |
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| Surface-directed ZnGa2O4 and β-Ga2O3 nanofins coated with a non-polar GaN shell based on the Kirkendall effect Babak Nikoobakht, Aaron C. Johnston-Peck, David Laleyan, Ping Wang and Zetian Mi https://doi.org/10.1039/D1CE00744K |
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| Spin crossover crystalline materials engineered via single-crystal-to-single-crystal transformations Shufang Xue, Yunnan Guo and Yann Garcia https://doi.org/10.1039/D1CE00234A |
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About CrystEngComm
Published by the Royal Society of Chemistry and with a truly international Editorial Board, CrystEngComm is the forum for the design and understanding of crystalline materials. We welcome studies on the investigation of molecular behaviour within crystals, control of nucleation and crystal growth, engineering of crystal structures, and construction of crystalline materials with tuneable properties and functions.
We invite you to submit your research to CrystEngComm and give your work the global visibility it deserves.
To keep up to date with the latest articles and other journal news, sign up to the e-alerts.
The latest CrystEngComm themed collection, Host‒Guest chemistry: in honour of Luigi Nassimbeni’s 9th decade is now online! Guest edited by Associate Editor, Professor Susan Bourne, University of Cape Town, South Africa; Professor Len Barbour, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa and Professor Nikoletta Bathori, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, South Africa, this collection aims to pay tribute to the remarkable achievements of Luigi Nassimbeni as he enters his 9th decade, and to celebrate him as an esteemed mentor, whose ideas and advancement of host-guest chemistry live on in successive generations of supramolecular chemists.
Host-guest chemistry has developed into a broad and exciting field of study, expanding rapidly from its early beginnings in the 1980s. From the study of inclusion compounds, this area of endeavour has evolved to encompass polymorphism, solid-state reactivity, multicomponent crystals, and mechanochemistry, with applications in separation, catalysis, chemical sensors and nanotechnology.
Luigi Nassimbeni has been highly influential in the development of this field, from early studies on hydrogen-bonded synthons, to advances in the separation of closely related organic compounds. Over the years, Luigi Nassimbeni has mentored many students who have gone on to establish their own independent careers in the field. He has played a significant role in the development of solid-state chemistry in South Africa, particularly with regard to X-ray diffraction, and through his early application of thermal analysis to the study of inclusion compounds. He was ahead of his time when he proposed, during the 1980’s, that it might be possible to activate some molecular crystals to yield porous structures for guest inclusion. This collection highlights his recent publications in CrystEngComm, as well as other recent articles on the topic of host-guest chemstry, along with new submissions from colleagues around the world.
See the full collection here
If you have primary research in the area of Host‒Guest chemistry ready for publication submit 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.
We are delighted to share with you our latest collection of recently published articles focusing on Imperfect nanocrystals for perfect catalysis handpicked by Associate Editor, Kwangyeol Lee, Korea University, Korea.
Vacancies, dopants, and defects are synonymous with imperfect atom ordering in crystalline materials. While dopants have been extensively exploited to fine-tune the material properties of semiconductors, the relevance of atom vacancies and defects to the activity and stability of nanoparticle-based catalysts has been recognized only recently. Intentional disturbance in the atom ordering in nanocatalysts has led to the development of nanocatalysts with exceptional catalytic activity and stability. However, the ability for controlled introduction of defects and vacancies to the desired locations and amounts, while maintaining the nanoparticle material phase is only at the fledgling stage, not to mention our understanding of the true origin of the superb catalytic performance of them. This selection of articles would point to the importance of imperfect nanocrystals to the development of perfect nanocatalysts.
These articles are all free to access until September 30th, 2021 and we hope you enjoy reading them.
We also invite you to submit your research to CrystEngComm to give your work the global visibility it deserves.
Selected articles:
| Recent advances in transition metal based compound catalysts for water splitting from the perspective of crystal engineering Min Ju, Xiaoting Wang, Xia Long and Shihe Yang CrystEngComm, 2020,22, 1531-1540 |
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| Cu-Deficient plasmonic Cu2−xS nanocrystals induced tunable photocatalytic activities Xiao Shao, Tianyong Zhang, Bin Li, Yue Wu, Xiaoyuan Ma, Jingchao Wang and Shuang Jiang CrystEngComm, 2020,22, 678-685 |
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| Few-layered CuInP2S6 nanosheet with sulfur vacancy boosting photocatalytic hydrogen evolution Peng Yu, Fengmei Wang, Jun Meng, Tofik Ahmed Shifa, Marshet Getaye Sendeku, Ju Fang, Shuxian Li, Zhongzhou Cheng, Xiaoding Lou and Jun He CrystEngComm, 2021,23, 591-598 |
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Meet the Editor
Kwangyeol Lee is Professor of chemistry at Korea University. He graduated from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (1992) and obtained a PhD degree (1997) in Chemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign under the supervision of Professor John R. Shapley. After fulfilling his Korean military obligations he joined Korea University in 2003 as an Assistant Professor. During his independent research career, he has studied nanocrystal growth, phase conversions in nanoscale as well as nanoparticle applications. He has contributed over 180 papers to the fields of Organometallic Chemistry and Nanochemistry. His current research efforts are focused on the development of synthetic methodologies for nanoscale materials and the development of nanotechnologies to support the environment by creating sustainable energy. He is the recipient of the Distinguished Lectureship Award (2007, The Chemical Society of Japan), Wiley-KCS Young Scholar Award (2009, The Korean Chemical Society) and the Excellent Research Award (2019, Inorganic Chemistry Division of The Korean Chemical Society).
About CrystEngComm
Published by the Royal Society of Chemistry and with a truly international Editorial Board, CrystEngComm is the forum for the design and understanding of crystalline materials. We welcome studies on the investigation of molecular behaviour within crystals, control of nucleation and crystal growth, engineering of crystal structures, and construction of crystalline materials with tuneable properties and functions.
To keep up to date with the latest articles and other journal news, sign up to the e-alerts.
We are delighted to share with you our latest collection of recently published articles focusing on Halogen Bonding in Crystal Engineering, handpicked by Chair of the Editorial Board, Pierangelo Metrangolo, Politecnico di Milano, Italy.
The halogen bond is the attractive interaction between an electrophilic region associated with a halogen atom in a molecular entity and a nucleophilic region in another, or the same, molecular entity. Since its rediscovery in the early 2000s, the field of halogen bonding has boomed, becoming one of the most used chemical interactions in crystal engineering. This Editor’s collection highlights recent contributions to CrystEngComm that are broadly focused on halogen bonding in crystal engineering. The selection of articles showcases how the field has developed from the design of crystal structures to the development of functional materials. The wide range of halogen bond applications covers phosphorescent materials, pharmaceutical co-crystals and peptides, organic electronics, coordination frameworks, where the halogen bonds either drive the formation of the network, or stabilize it as a secondary interaction, or is used to bind hosted guests. Halogen bonding has become a mature field of research but its rediscovery has sparked interest towards other lesser known interactions, which are anticipated to become more prominent in the future, such as chalcogen, pnictogen, and tetrel bonds.
All of these articles are free to access until June 30th 2021 and we hope you enjoy reading them.
We also invite you to submit your research to CrystEngComm to give your work the global visibility it deserves.
Selected articles:
| Halogen bonded metal bis(dithiolene) 2D frameworks Hadi Hachem, Olivier Jeannin, Marc Fourmigué, Frédéric Barrière and Dominique Lorcy CrystEngComm, 2020, 22, 3579-3587 |
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| Two-dimensional halogen-bonded organic frameworks based on the tetrabromobenzene-1,4-dicarboxylic acid building molecule Nucharee Chongboriboon, Kodchakorn Samakun, Thitirat Inprasit, Filip Kielar, Winya Dungkaew, Lawrence W.-Y. Wong, Herman H.-Y. Sung, Dragan B. Ninković, Snežana D. Zarić and Kittipong Chainok CrystEngComm, 2020, 22, 24-34 |
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| Halogen bonding in 5-iodo-1-arylpyrazoles investigated in the solid state and predicted by solution 13C-NMR spectroscopy Marcel Mirel Popa, Isabela Costinela Man, Constantin Draghici, Sergiu Shova, Mino R. Caira, Florea Dumitrascu and Denisa Dumitrescu CrystEngComm, 2019, 7085-7093 |
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Meet the Editor
Pierangelo Metrangolo (Lecce, 16 April 1972) has been a full Professor at the Politecnico di Milano since 2011. He also holds a part-time position at the VTT-Technical Research Centre of Finland and from 2015 has been a visiting professor at the Aalto University, Finland. He is co-editor of Acta Crystallographica, section B and is Chair of the Editorial Board of CrystEngComm and is on the Editorial Advisory Board of Crystal Growth and Design.
He is author of 185 publications with 9266 citations (h-index: 49), 10 chapters in international books and holds 11 patents. He has given 45 invited lectures at national and international meetings and 26 invited seminars at universities and research institutes. He is currently Titular Member of the Physical and Biophysical Chemistry Division of the IUPAC. Since 2013 he is the holder of a European Research Council grant to carry with the project “FOLDHALO – Folding with Halogen Bonding”.
About CrystEngComm
Published by the Royal Society of Chemistry and with a truly international Editorial Board, CrystEngComm is the forum for the design and understanding of crystalline materials. We welcome studies on the investigation of molecular behaviour within crystals, control of nucleation and crystal growth, engineering of crystal structures, and construction of crystalline materials with tuneable properties and functions.
To keep up to date with the latest articles and other journal news, sign up to the e-alerts.
