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Outstanding Reviewers for CrystEngComm in 2018

15 Mar 2019

We would like to highlight the Outstanding Reviewers for CrystEngComm in 2018, as selected by the editorial team, for their significant contribution to the journal. The reviewers have been chosen based on the number, timeliness and quality of the reports completed over the last 12 months.

We would like to say a big thank you to those individuals listed here as well as to all of the reviewers that have supported the journal. Each Outstanding Reviewer will receive a certificate to give recognition for their significant contribution.

Professor Matthias Bickermann, Leibniz Institute for Crystal Growth ORCiD: 0000-0003-0888-849X

Professor Catharine Esterhuysen, Stellenbosch University ORCiD: 0000-0002-0135-2118

Dr Franca Jones, Curtin University ORCiD: 0000-0002-8461-8291

Dr Richard Jones, Keele University ORCiD: 0000-0001-9663-1525

Dr Anna Krawczuk, Jagiellonian University ORCiD: 0000-0001-7172-7264

Professor Jian-Ping Lang, Soochow University ORCiD: 0000-0003-2942-7385

Professor Weiqiang Liao, Southeast University ORCiD: 0000-0002-5359-7037

Dr Subhadip Neogi, CSIR-CSMCRI ORCiD: 0000-0002-3838-4180

Dr Alexander Shtukenberg, NYU ORCiD: 0000-0002-5590-4758

Dr Tharanga Wijethunga, MIT ORCiD: 0000-0003-1099-9471

We would also like to thank the CrystEngComm board and the crystal engineering and crystalline materials community for their continued support of the journal, as authors, reviewers and readers.

If you would like to become a reviewer for our journal, just email us with details of your research interests and an up-to-date CV or résumé. You can find more details in our author and reviewer resource centre

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Meet our new Editorial Board Members!

20 Jul 2018

We are delighted to introduce Professors Susan Bourne and Dongfeng Xue as the newest members of our Editorial Board and are very happy to be able to welcome them to the team, and look forward to working closely with them on shaping the future of CrystEngComm!

Professor Dongfeng Xue

Dongfeng Xue is a Professor at the State Key Laboratory of Rare Earth Resource Utilization, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry. He received his PhD in inorganic chemistry at CIAC 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 Professor in 2001 at Dalian University of Technology, China. In 2011, he returned to CIAC to assume his professorship in inorganic chemistry. His research interests focus on multiscale crystallization of inorganic matter for energy and optical applications.

As a CrystEngComm Associate Editor, Professor Xue will be handling submissions in the areas of crystal growth, nanomaterials, polymorphism and crystal engineering techniques.

Professor Susan Bourne

Susan Bourne is the Professor of Physical Chemistry at the University of Cape Town. Her PhD, obtained at the University of Cape Town, was a study of organic inclusion compounds undertaken under the supervision of Professor Luigi Nassimbeni. Her research interests include the application of physicochemical methods to inclusion compounds and crystal engineering of metal-organic materials, all with the aim of correlating solid-state structure with physical properties and reactivity. She has published over 120 papers and has supervised 20 postgraduate students. She is the chair of the Structural Chemistry Commission of the International Union of Crystallography, and is a Fellow of the University of Cape Town.

Browse a selection of recent work published by Dongfeng and Susan below:

Design and synthesis of a nonlinear optical material BaAl₄S₇ with a wide band gap inspired from SrB₄O₇
Dajiang Mei, Jianqiao Jiang, Fei Liang, Shiyan Zhang, Yuandong Wu, Congting Sun, Dongfeng Xue and Zheshuai Lin
J. Mater. Chem. C, 2018, 6, 2684-2689

The synergy effect of rare earth cations on local structure and PL emission in a Ce³⁺:REPO₄ (RE = La, Gd, Lu, Y) system
Congting Sun and Dongfeng Xue
Dalton Trans., 2017, 46, 7888-7896

Crystallization of transition metal oxides within 12 seconds
Kunfeng Chen and Dongfeng Xue
CrystEngComm, 2017, 19, 1230-1238

Supramolecular metallogels constructed from carboxylate gelators
Savannah C. Zacharias, Gaëlle Ramon and Susan A. Bourne
Soft Matter, 2018, 14, 4505-4519

Unravelling chromism in metal–organic frameworks
Gift Mehlana and Susan A. Bourne
CrystEngComm, 2017, 19, 4238-4259

Crystallisation temperature control of stoichiometry and selectivity in host–guest compounds
Nicole M. Sykes, Hong Su, Edwin Weber, Susan A. Bourne and Luigi R. Nassimbeni
CrystEngComm, 2017, 19, 5892-5896

*Access to these articles is free until 31/08/2018 through a registered RSC account.

Submit your research or reviews 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.

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AIC Award winner 2018

20 Jul 2018

Congratulations to Luca Catalano, a CrystEngComm author and former PhD student of Pierangelo Metrangolo, our CrystEngComm chair.

Luca has won a prize for best PhD thesis at the Italian Association of Crystallography which took place last month in Rome, Italy. His thesis was titled: ‘Towards Engineering of Solid-State Supramolecular Rotors via Halogen Bonding‘.

Luca currently works as a post-doctoral researcher for Pance Naumov’s group.

(Left) Luca Catalano with his award at the AIC 2018

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Outstanding Reviewers for CrystEngComm in 2017

21 Mar 2018

We are delighted to highlight the Outstanding Reviewers for CrystEngComm in 2017, as selected by the editorial team, for their significant contribution to the journal. The reviewers have been chosen based on the quantity, quality and timeliness of the reports completed over the last 12 months.

A big thank you to those individuals listed here as well as to all of the reviewers that have supported the journal. Each Outstanding Reviewer will receive a certificate to give recognition for their significant contribution.

Dr Jubaraj Baruah, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, ORCID: 0000-0003-3371-7529
Dr Dominic Cinčić, University of Zagreb, ORCID: 0000-0002-4081-2420
Dr Chris Hawes, Keele University, ORCID: 0000-0001-6902-7939
Dr Franca Jones, Curtin University of Technology
Dr Jaheon Kim, Soongsil Univeristy, ORCID: 0000-0001-6430-8790
Dr Aurelian Marcu, National Institute for Laser Plasma and Radiation Physics
Dr Stefanos Mourdikoudis, University College London, ORCID: 0000-0001-7187-5128
Dr Kaijie Ning, Virginia Tech
Dr Alexander Shtukenberg, New York University, ORCID: 0000-0002-5590-4758
Dr Wancheng Zhu, Qufu Normal University

Thank you to the CrystEngComm board and the crystal engineering and crystalline materials community for their continued support of the journal, as authors, reviewers and readers.

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IUCr 2017

17 Aug 2017

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Algorithm deliberately entangles MOFs

14 Aug 2017

Scientists normally want to stop their metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) from interpenetrating. But after realising the drawbacks of these entangled structures could actually be benefits they now want to find ones that definitely will.

It’s hard to mention MOFs without mentioning their pores. These pores and the potential created by their massive surface area have had scientists daydreaming about their possible applications for years. But these pores can easily clog up with sub-lattices, rendering them useless. Or so they thought. Interpenetrated MOFs are very strong and they can still have pores – with a much more specific size, which could be quite handy.

Source: © Royal Society of Chemistry Exemplary candidate hetero-interpenetrated structures discovered in this study

Interested? The full story can be read in Chemistry World.

The original article can be read below and is free to access until 18^th September 2017

Discovery of hypothetical hetero-interpenetrated MOFs with arbitrarily dissimilar topologies and unit cell shapes
K B Sezginel, T Feng and C E Wilmer*
CrystEngComm, 2017, 19, 4497-4504
DOI: 10.1039/C7CE00290D

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3D-Printing of Ceramic Scintillators

01 Aug 2017

Inorganic scintillators have desirable properties for the detection of ionising radiation, with potential applications including in nuclear instrumentation. Scintillators are materials which produce light when they interact with ionising radiation allowing the radiation to be detected and quantified. However, the methods used to prepare inorganic scintillators are a limitation to the development of further uses. Growing crystals from the melt provides only a limited range of materials and, while glasses or glass-ceramics allow a wider range, these materials typically have a low light intensity. Polycrystalline ceramics lie between single crystals and glasses in terms of properties.

In a recent paper, Dosovitskiy et al. demonstrate the preparation of the scintillator YAG:Ce (yttrium aluminium garnet doped with cerium activator) as a polycrystalline ceramic using 3D-printing. This was achieved for Y_2.97Ce_0.03Al₅O₁₂ by co-precipitation followed by heating at 900 ^oC. A slurry of the resulting powder was then used to 3D-print green bodies using stereolithography. A so-called green body contains the material of interest along with a binder, the latter being subsequently removed by heating.

Graphical abstract: First 3D-printed complex inorganic polycrystalline scintillator

After debinding and sintering at 1600 ^oC , the properties of the resulting ceramic material were compared with those of the corresponding YAG:Ce single crystals. The ceramic showed a scintillation light yield more than 60% higher than that of the single crystals, when using 5.5 MeV α-particles.

Higher activator concentrations can be achieved using this preparation method than in single crystals and this is beneficial to the light yield. 3D printing allows the production of shapes not available by other methods, free of defects and larger than 1 micrometer. One possible application of this is in the production of luminescent materials for LED lighting devices.

For more information, see the full paper at:

First 3D-printed complex inorganic polycrystalline scintillator

A. Dosovitskiy, P. V. Karpyuk, P. V. Evdokimov, D. E. Kuznetsova, V. A. Mechinsky, A. E. Borisevich, A. A. Fedorov, V. I. Putlayev, A. E. Dosovitskiy, M. V. Korjik

DOI:10.1039/C7CE00541E

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Gwenda Kyd has a PhD in metallocarborane chemistry from the University of Edinburgh. Other research work includes the spectroscopic study of the structure of glasses and organometallic electron-transfer reactions and the preparation of new inorganic phosphors. She published a book, ‘Molecules, Medicines and Mischief’, in 2014, on some of the chemicals found in plants and is currently working on a follow-up.

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Poster prize winners at CEMWOQ-4

17 Jul 2017

Congratulations to the CrystEngComm poster prize winners who were awarded at The 4^th Crystal Engineering and Emerging Materials Workshop of Ontario and Quebec (CEMWOQ-4). The workshop was held in Ontario, Canada from the 26^th – 28^th May 2017. Christer Aakeroy our Associate Editor attended as a plenary lecturer and was on hand to award the prizes.

The winners were presented accordingly:

1^st Place Undergraduate Poster Award: Junghoon Ko, University of Windsor, for “Discotic Liquid Crystals with Internal Side Chains as Potential Organic Semi-Conductors”
2^nd Place Graduate Poster Award: Mitchell Nascimento, University of Windsor, for “Expanding the Family of Palladium-DTDA Metal Complexes”
2^nd Place Undergraduate Poster Award: Austin Peach, University of Windsor, for “Applications of 35Cl SSNMR for the study of HCl Pharmaceutical Cocrystals”

The workshop enables an easy exchange of ideas, expertise and information and serves as an educational event for students. It also supports/creates new collaborations between research groups. There are plenary and oral presentations, and a poster session with opportunity for discussion within the program. A training workshop on the day before the main meeting is included, on a topic relevant to one or more of the existing themes of the meeting.

Further information on the most recent meeting, and links to other previous meetings, can be viewed at this website.

(From left) Christer Aakeroy awarding CrystEngComm poster prizes to (from left to right): Junghoon Ko, Mitchell Nascimento and Austin Peach

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Solid state synthesis not so solid after all

14 Jul 2017

Weather and climate influence solid state reactions in previously unrealised ways. So say scientists who have found a mysterious liquid phase at the interface between solids when investigating mechanochemical synthesis.

Source: Royal Society of Chemistry Co-grinding a dry mixture of α-glycine and β-malonic acid is known to give a stoichiometric salt, glycinium semi-malonate.

Mechanochemical reactions are performed by grinding two solid reactants together without a solvent. They are often touted as a green alternative to traditional synthesis, and occur via complex pathways quite different to reactions in solution. Humans have used mechanochemistry since time immemorial: to create fire from the friction between two pieces of wood, in the process of ball milling since the industrial revolution, and to prepare powders for pharmaceuticals and rocket propellants.

The full article can be read in Chemistry World.

The original article can be read below and is open access

Inadvertent liquid assisted grinding: a key to “dry” organic mechano-co-crystallisation?
I A Tumanov et al,
CrystEngComm, 2017, 19, 2830
DOI: 10.1039/c7ce00517b

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CrystEngComm Prize winners at the 27th MOSSCS symposium

23 Jun 2017

Congratulations to CrystEngComm prize winners: Bhupinder Sandhu, Yue Qiu and Shane Nichols. They were awarded their prizes at the Midwest Organic Solid State Chemistry Symposium XXVII (MOSSCS) which took place at Kansas State University, USA from the 9^th – 10^th June 2017. CrystEngComm Associate Editor Christer Aakeroy was on hand to present their certificates.

The MOSSCS symposium provides opportunities for the scientific community to exchange ideas and research results on the organic solid state in a relaxed environment. The symposium involves presentations by graduate students and postdoctoral associates as well as invited lectures on topics of current interest.

Further information about the symposium can be found on their website.

CrystEngComm Associate Editor Christer Aakeroy with prize winners (left to right): Bhupinder Sandhu, Yue Qiu and Shane Nichols

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