CrystEngComm Blog

Friendly solar cell synthesis

24 Feb 2012

The race is on to develop the most efficient, low-cost solar cells to meet the green energy demand of the future. Unfortunately, high power conversion efficiencies often come at high economic cost and so there is still a lot of room for improvement for existing materials and technologies.

Scientists from Donghua University, China, have now touched upon another desirable feature of solar cell materials – environmentally friendly synthesis. Junqing Hu and his team have sought to develop solar cells based on Cu₂ZnSnS₄ (CZTS) nanocrystal films.

Previous reports using these nanocrystal inks or the selenised CZTSSe analogues have shown promise but their hydrophobic nature (due to the oleylamine capping agent) means they can only be dispersed in organic solvents. Other drawbacks to their synthesis include using cadmium in the buffer layer (environmental implications); glass substrates (inflexibility); and hydrazine as a precursor to the inks (toxic and difficult to handle).

In their recent CrystEngComm Communication, Hu and colleagues describe the solvothermal synthesis of hydrophilic CZTS nanocrystal inks. By developing a film-printing technique they were able to fabricate a flexible and environmentally-friendly solar cell. Although the conversion efficiency is somewhat low (1.94 %) compared to other reported values for CZTSSe materials, the authors expect that it can be improved by optimising the film-printing technique, film thickness and annealing process, and selenising the film.

This HOT article is free to access until 19^th March so download it now…

Hydrophilic Cu₂ZnSnS₄ nanocrystals for printing flexible, low-cost and environmentally friendly solar cells
Qiwei Tian, Xiaofeng Xu, Linbo Han, Minghua Tang, Rujia Zou, Zhigang Chen, Muhuo Yu, Jianmao Yang and Junqing Hu

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2012 Meeting for the Control and Prediction of the Organic Solid State

23 Feb 2012

By Claire Murray, Web Writer.

CPOSS Logo The 2012 meeting for the Control and Prediction of the Organic Solid State Project will take place on Tuesday 3^rd April 2012 at University College London from 9am – 4pm.

The meeting theme is “Crystal or not –where do we go from here?”, and features a variety of speakers including Alastair Florence, ChemComm Editorial Board member Jon Steed, and Sally Price (who will soon be featured in a CrystEngComm interview – watch this space!).

Register now. The meeting is free to attend.

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Upcoming Symposium: Trends in Inorganic Chemistry

15 Feb 2012

By Matthew Cude, Development Editor.

Metal-Organic Frameworks, Porous Coordination Polymers and Zeolites

This symposium, being held in the Magnéli Hall at Stockholm University May 23rd, will cover the ever expanding fields of Metal-Organic Frameworks, Porous Coordination Polymers and Zeolites.

The day will include lectures from the following key speakers:

Michael O’Keeffe, Arizona State University
Neil Champness, University of Nottingham
Susumu Kitagawa, Kyoto University
Unni Olsbye, University of Oslo,
Stuart Batten, Monash University
Tina Düren, University of Edinburgh
Javier García-Martínez, University of Alicante
Xiao-Ming Chen, Sun Yat-Sen University
Myunghyun Paik Suh, Seoul National University

For more details about the event, including how to register, you can access the website here.

Also of interest, the recent Hot Article published by the group ‘Coordination polymers, metal–organic frameworks and the need for terminology guidelines’.

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Building a nation of scientists

14 Feb 2012

By Matthew Cude, Development Editor.

Goverdhan Mehta talks to Sheena Elliott and Elinor Richards about the progress of science in India and the challenges scientists face

Goverdhan Mehta is a researcher, specialising in organic synthesis. He has helped to build institutions in India – the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, the University of Hyderabad, and the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. He was director of the Indian Institute of Science (1998-2005) and vice chancellor of the University of Hyderabad (1994-1998).

His interview with Chemistry World can be found here

Articles of interest include:

Towards a temperature-guided molecular switch: an unusual reversible low-temperature polymorphic phase transition in a conformationally locked environment
Goverdhan Mehta and Saikat Sen, Chem. Commun., 2009, 5981
DOI: 10.1039/b905651c

Understanding the self-assembling process in crystalline cyclooctitols: an insight into the conformational flexibility of medium-sized rings
Goverdhan Mehta, Saikat Sen and Kotapalli Pallavi, CrystEngComm, 2008, 10, 534
DOI: 10.1039/b712877k
Additive induced polymorphous behavior of a conformationally locked hexol
Goverdhan Mehta, Saikat Sen and Kailasam Venkatesan, CrystEngComm, 2007, 9, 144
DOI: 10.1039/b613949c

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Mechanochemistry engineers new pharmaceutical solid forms

10 Feb 2012

By Helen Lunn, Publishing Editor.

This CrystEngComm Highlight provides a brief overview of advances in the synthesis of new pharmaceutical forms, based on molecular assembly through non-covalent interactions or coordination bonds which have been provided through mechanochemical methods of neat and liquid-assisted grinding. In particular, it has been shown that liquid-assisted grinding provides an environment free of solubility-based limitations inherent to solution-based cocrystallisation, thereby leading to highly efficient screening for polymorphs, cocrystals and salts. The applicability of liquid-assisted grinding and subsequently derived ion-and liquid-assisted grinding has been recently extended to the area of metal-based pharmaceuticals and metallodrugs. The work suggests mechanochemical screening may have a pivotal role in the future development of pharmaceutical solid forms and, potentially, in the covalent synthesis of drug candidates.

Read more for FREE about the crystal engineering possibilities at:
The role of mechanochemistry and supramolecular design in the development of pharmaceutical materials
Amit Delori , Tomislav Friščić and William Jones
CrystEngComm, 2012, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C2CE06582G

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February Crystal Clear: A Clear Crystal

10 Feb 2012

By Matthew Cude, Development Editor.

This month’s crystal clear could almost be an ice cube, it’s certainly large enough!

In fact this is a single crystal of K₃B₆O₁₀Cl synthesised by Shilie Pan et al. and has dimensions of 25 x 11 x 7 mm³. The team based at Xinjiang Technical Institute of Physics & Chemistry have published their findings in Issue 3 of CrystEngComm, detailing the growth of these crystals as well as their optical properties.

Materials which possess non-linear optical (NLO) properties are of great interest given their potential applications in photonics, including optical storage and frequency mixing. Using a top-seeded solution growth method the team synthesised these large crystals and found them to have a high laser damage threshold and a wide transparency range. The K₃B₆O₁₀Cl crystals are potentially promising in high-power UV light generation.

It is important for application that very high quality single crystals are formed; initially the researchers found that spontaneous nucleation and crack formation hindered quality crystal growth, with crystalline grains floating on the solution surface and attaching to the edge of the growing crystal.

To see how the team overcame these problems to produce the beautiful single crystal displayed here you can download their article now, which has been made free to access for 4 weeks.

Growth, thermal and optical properties of a novel nonlinear optical material K₃B₆O₁₀Cl
Hongping Wu, Shilie Pan, Hongwei Yu, Dianzeng Jia, Aiming Chang, Hongyi Li, Fangfang Zhang and Xia Huang
CrystEngComm, 2012, 14, 799-803
DOI: 10.1039/C1CE05886J

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Chemical route to perovskites: alkali is the answer

07 Feb 2012

By Fiona McKenzie, Executive Editor.

Perovskite materials are pretty tricky to synthesise – particularly those with A_xA_1–x‘BO₃structure. Conventional solid state approaches suffer from contamination with unreacted materials and even sol-gel processes can result in materials with structural defects and impurities.

Chi-Young Lee and co-workers from National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan have set out to find a simpler route to synthesise these troublesome materials, developing a chemical method that requires the lowest temperature reported to date for perovskite synthesis.

Their method involves mixing TiO₂ with the desired Group 2 hydroxide in sodium hydroxide solution and refluxing at 140 °C. By varying the reaction time, they were able to control the morphology as they demonstrated for SrTiO₃, attributing the different forms to the relative stabilities of the crystal planes. What’s more, they could tune the composition of Ba_xSr_1–xTiO₃ through stoichiometric adjustment of the starting materials.

To find out more on Lee and his team’s perovskite synthesis, download the CrystEngComm article today…
Simple chemical preparation of perovskite-based materials using alkali treatment

Also of interest…

Local structural distortion of BaZr_xTi_1–xO₃nanocrystals synthesized at room temperature, F. A. Rabuffetti and R. L. Brutchey, Chem. Commun., 2012, 48, 1437.
Low-temperature synthesis of solid-solution Ba_xSr_1–xTiO₃ nanocrystals, R. L. Brutchey et al., J. Mater. Chem., 2010, 20, 5074.

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IUPAC Update: Coordination polymer/MOF nomenclature

06 Feb 2012

By Matthew Cude, Development Editor.

Following on from the previous blog last year ‘IUPAC Survey: Coordination polymer/MOF nomenclature’, we can now report the IUPAC division of Inorganic Chemistry has published a Highlight article ‘Coordination polymers, metal–organic frameworks and the need for terminology guidelines’. The paper is a summary of the work of the task group so far and the interactions they have had with scientists in the area.

The most common terms are coordination polymer and metal-organic framework and it can be difficult to know which structures are covered by which names and what these names mean to different people. This paper introduces the different ideas between various groups and provides an agenda for further work in the area.

Given the significance and interest of this article it has been made free to access until the end of March and can be downloaded below.

Coordination polymers, metal–organic frameworks and the need for terminology guidelines
Stuart R. Batten, Neil R. Champness, Xiao-Ming Chen, Javier Garcia-Martinez, Susumu Kitagawa, Lars Öhrström, Michael O’Keeffe, Myunghyun Paik Suh and Jan Reedijk
CrystEngComm, 2012, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C2CE06488J

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‘Lighting up’ MOFs

06 Feb 2012

By Claire Murray, Web Writer.

Interest in Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) has escalated in recent years due to potential applications in gas storage, catalysis and ion-exchange. The growing demand for these multifunctional materials imposes expectations of certain properties, which are often met by variations in construction and choice of linking ligands.

Luminescence of the Pb(II) butyrate crystals

This Advance Article by Francisco Javier Martínez Casado and colleagues from Spain and Italy reports the synthesis, structural characterisation and photophysical properties of two new lead(II) butyrate-based compounds, with 3-dimensional MOF architechtures. Metal and ligand selection were targeted towards obtaining active luminescent materials, particularly due to the intense optical properties of lead(II) and the characteristic amphiphilic behaviour (organic or inorganic) of the family of metal alkanoates, also known as ‘metal soaps’.

The crystal structures of the compounds are very similar, with luminescence detected for the first time during data collection (see left). Analysis of the photoluminescence properties by UV-Vis absorption spectroscopy and steady-state fluorescence and lifetime measurements revealed exciting optical properties for the two lead(II) compounds. Excitation by UV radiation resulted in intense fluorescence indicating potential applications in the tuning of emission energies of MOFs. Future work in this area will explore these crystalline systems as potential host structures to generate electro- and photo- responsive materials for novel molecular devices.

Read the full article to find out more!

Luminescent lead(II) complexes: new three-dimensional mixed ligand MOFs
Francisco Javier Martínez Casado, Laura Cañadillas-Delgado, Fabio Cucinotta, Andrés Guerrero-Martínez, Miguel Ramos Riesco, Leonardo Marchese and José Antonio Rodríguez Cheda
CrystEngComm, 2012, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C2CE06546K

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This weeks CrystEngSelects

01 Feb 2012

By Matthew Cude, Development Editor.

Here is this week’s selection of advanced articles of interest to crystal engineers from across the RSC journals

                                                         Articles are chosen from:
        ChemComm,
        Chemical Science,
        CrystEngComm,
        Dalton Transactions,
        Journal of Materials Chemistry,
        Nanoscale,
        New Journal of Chemistry,
        RSC Advances.

Guest-induced crystal-to-crystal expansion and contraction of a 3-D porous coordination polymer
Witold M. Bloch and Christopher J. Sumby
Chem. Commun., 2012, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C2CC17440E, Communication

Occurrence of spontaneous resolution of ketoprofen with a racemic crystal structure by simple crystallization under nonequilibrium preferential enrichment conditions
Rajesh G Gonnade, Sekai Iwama, Ryusuke Sugiwake, K Manoj, Hiroki Takahashi, Hirohito Tsue and Rui Tamura
Chem. Commun., 2012, Accepted Manuscript
DOI: 10.1039/C2CC18132K, Communication

Solvent-induced single-crystal to single-crystal transformation of a 2D coordination network to a 3D metal-organic framework greatly enhances porosity and hydrogen uptake
Wenbin Lin, Liang Wen and Peng Cheng
Chem. Commun., 2012, Accepted Manuscript
DOI: 10.1039/C2CC17298D, Communication

Breathing Molecular Crystals: Halogen and Hydrogen Bonded Porous Molecular Crystals with Solvent Induced Adaptation of the Nano-sized Channels
Kari Raatikainen and Kari Rissanen
Chem. Sci., 2012, Accepted Manuscript
DOI: 10.1039/C2SC00997H, Edge Article

Role of intermolecular interactions involving organic fluorine in trifluoromethylated benzanilides
Piyush Panini and Deepak Chopra
CrystEngComm, 2012, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C2CE06254B

Homochiral lanthanoid(III) mesoxalate metal–organic frameworks: synthesis, crystal growth, chirality, magnetic and luminescent properties
Beatriz Gil-Hernández, Jana K. Maclaren, Henning A. Höppe, Jorge Pasán, Joaquín Sanchiz and Christoph Janiak
CrystEngComm, 2012, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C2CE06496K

Synthon preferences in cocrystals of cis-carboxamides:carboxylic acids
Alaina M. Moragues-Bartolome, William Jones and Aurora J. Cruz-Cabeza
CrystEngComm, 2012
DOI: 10.1039/C2CE06241K

Enhanced formation of PbSe nanorods via combined solution–liquid–solid growth and oriented attachment
Min-Seok Kim and Yun-Mo Sung
CrystEngComm, 2012, DOI: 10.1039/C2CE06353K

A family of 2D and 3D coordination polymers involving a trigonal tritopic linker
Ines Maria Hauptvogel, Volodymyr Bon, Ronny Grünker, Igor A. Baburin, Irena Senkovska, Uwe Mueller and Stefan Kaskel
Dalton Trans., 2012, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C2DT12072K, Paper

Nanocrystalline CaYAlO4:Tb3+/Eu3+ as promising phosphors for full-color field emission displays
Dongling Geng, Guogang Li, Mengmeng Shang, Chong Peng, Yang Zhang, Ziyong Cheng and Jun Lin
Dalton Trans., 2012, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C2DT12222G, Paper

Effect of ZnS and CdS coating on the photovoltaic properties of CuInS2-sensitized photoelectrodes
Guoping Xu, Shulin Ji, Chunhui Miao, Guodong Liu and Changhui Ye
J. Mater. Chem., 2012, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C2JM15908B, Paper

A new building block, bis(thiophene vinyl)-pyrimidine, for constructing excellent two-photon absorption materials: synthesis, crystal structure and properties
Dugang Chen, Cheng Zhong, Xiaohu Dong, Zhihong Liu and Jingui Qin
J. Mater. Chem., 2012, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C2JM14766A, Paper

Large area, soft crystalline thin films of N,N′,N′′-trialkyltriazatriangulenium salts with homeotropic alignment of the discotic cores in a lamellar lattice
Thomas Just Sørensen, Christoffer B. Hildebrandt, Jonas Elm, Jens W. Andreasen, Anders Ø. Madsen, Fredrik Westerlund and Bo W. Laursen
J. Mater. Chem., 2012, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C2JM15954F, Paper

Magnetic spherical cores partly coated with periodic mesoporous organosilica single crystals
Jing Li, Yong Wei, Wei Li, Yonghui Deng and Dongyuan Zhao
Nanoscale, 2012, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C2NR11941B, Paper

A highly stable, efficient visible-light driven water photoelectrolysis system using a nanocrystalline WO3 photoanode and a methane sulfonic acid electrolyte
Renata Solarska, Rafał Jurczakowski and Jan Augustynski
Nanoscale, 2012, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C2NR11573E, Communication

Seeded growth induced amorphous to crystalline transformation of niobium oxide nanostructures
Subhra Jana and Robert M. Rioux
Nanoscale, 2012, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C2NR11803C, Paper

Sonochemistry synthesis and enhanced photocatalytic H2-production activity of nanocrystals embedded in CdS/ZnS/In2S3 microspheres
Zaoyu Shen, Gang Chen, Qun Wang, Yaoguang Yu, Chao Zhou and Yu Wang
Nanoscale, 2012, Accepted Manuscript
DOI: 10.1039/C2NR12045C, Paper

Synthesis and thermal behavior of chiral dimers: occurrence of highly frustrated and cholesteric liquid crystal phases
G. Shanker and C. V. Yelamaggad
New J. Chem., 2012, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C2NJ21035E, Paper

Cation binding resorcinarene bis-crowns: the effect of lower rim alkyl chain length on crystal packing and solid lipid nanoparticles
Kaisa Helttunen, Kirsi Salorinne, Tahnie Barboza, Hélène Campos Barbosa, Aku Suhonen and Maija Nissinen
New J. Chem., 2012, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C2NJ20981K, Paper

Improved Electrochemical Performances of Nanocrystalline Li[Li0.2Mn0.54Ni0.13Co0.13]O2 Cathode Material for Li-ion Batteries
Yuliang Cao
RSC Adv., 2012, Accepted Manuscript
DOI: 10.1039/C2RA20122D, Paper

Synthesis of CaCO3/graphene composite crystals for ultra-strong structural materials
Xiluan Wang, Hua Bai, Yuying Jia, Linjie Zhi, Liangti Qu, Yuxi Xu, Chun Li and Gaoquan Shi
RSC Adv., 2012, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C2RA00765G, Paper

Tailoring cobalt doped zinc oxide nanocrystals with high capacitance activity: factors affecting structure and surface morphology
Marauo Davis, Cenk Gümeci, Bria Black, Carol Korzeniewski and Louisa Hope-Weeks
RSC Adv., 2012, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C2RA00793B, Paper

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CrystEngComm Blog

Friendly solar cell synthesis

2012 Meeting for the Control and Prediction of the Organic Solid State

Upcoming Symposium: Trends in Inorganic Chemistry

Building a nation of scientists

Mechanochemistry engineers new pharmaceutical solid forms

February Crystal Clear: A Clear Crystal

Chemical route to perovskites: alkali is the answer

IUPAC Update: Coordination polymer/MOF nomenclature

‘Lighting up’ MOFs

This weeks CrystEngSelects

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