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PCCP Poster Prizes: Horizons in Hydrogen Bond Research

23 Sep 2011

PCCP was delighted to sponsor the 19th Conference on “Horizons of Hydrogen Bond Research” which took place on 12-17 September in Göttingen, Germany. PCCP were pleased to award two Poster Prizes at the conference.

Congratulations to Nils Lüttschwager and Ondrej Marsálek who were awarded the PCCP Poster Prizes. The winners were presented with a PCCP Prize certificate, as well as a financial award.

PCCP will be awarding more Poster Prizes next year, so please do let us know of any suitable conferences which PCCP could sponsor in 2012.

Submit your lastest research to PCCP today!

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RSC Research Fund – applications open

21 Sep 2011

The RSC Research Fund exists to assist members of the RSC in their research by the provision of grants of up to £2000.

If you work in a university, college or school anywhere in the world and your work is held up for lack of moderate funding, the RSC Research Fund may be able to help you.

Preference will be given to those working in less well-endowed institutions and to those supporting their own research. Applications from those working in well-established universities will normally only be considered in exceptional circumstances and evidence to support such proposals must be provided.

The RSC Council is especially anxious to see inventive applications of a “pump priming” nature and is prepared to consider applications from those working in chemical education as well as chemistry research.

Members in developing countries should note particularly that additional funds have been made available to provide grants for successful applicants from such countries. Preference will be given to those able to cite collaborative research projects with institutions in countries other than their own.

Applications are limited to one per department. The closing date for applications is 31 October 2011.

Rules and Criteria for the Research Fund

Apply to the RSC Research Fund

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Dissolving salt is more complex than you might think

13 Sep 2011

Michaelides et al. have investigated how NaCl dissolves in water using ab initio modelling of the system. The process involves several steps and begins with the loss of Cl^– ions. An improved understanding of the dissolution process of salt could be applied to many environmental and atmospheric chemistry problems.

This interesting research is also highlighted on the website of University College London’s Chemistry Department.

Read the full communication:

Initial stages of salt crystal dissolution determined with ab initio molecular dynamics
Li-Min Liu, Alessandro Laio and Angelos Michaelides
Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2011, 13, 13162-13166
DOI: 10.1039/C1CP21077G

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3D graphene structures are potential gas separation membranes

08 Sep 2011

HOT PCCP Communication

A 3D network structure made of graphene planes with carbon nanotube pillars has been modeled by Polish scientists. These materials show great promise for application as gas separation membranes.

Read the full article:

Pillared graphene as a gas separation membrane
Radosław P. Wesołowski and Artur P. Terzyk
DOI: 10.1039/C1CP21590F

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PCCP Most-Read Articles for Q2 2011

06 Sep 2011

Top 25 most-read PCCP articles for Q2

Characterization of nanostructured hybrid and organic solar cells by impedance spectroscopy
Francisco Fabregat-Santiago, Germà Garcia-Belmonte, Iván Mora-Seró and Juan Bisquert
DOI: 10.1039/C0CP02249G

Density functional theory for transition metals and transition metal chemistry
Christopher J. Cramer and Donald G. Truhlar
DOI: 10.1039/B907148B

Photoblinking and photobleaching of rylene diimide dyes
Mathias Haase, Christian G. Hübner, Fabian Nolde, Klaus Müllen and Thomas Basché
DOI: 10.1039/C0CP01814G

Titania supported gold nanoparticles as photocatalyst
Ana Primo, Avelino Corma and Hermenegildo García
DOI: 10.1039/C0CP00917B

Bimetallic Pt–Au nanocatalysts electrochemically deposited on graphene and their electrocatalytic characteristics towards oxygen reduction and methanol oxidation
Yaojuan Hu, Hua Zhang, Ping Wu, Hui Zhang, Bo Zhou and Chenxin Cai
DOI: 10.1039/C0CP01998D

Catalysis by metal–organic frameworks: fundamentals and opportunities
Marco Ranocchiari and Jeroen Anton van Bokhoven
DOI: 10.1039/C0CP02394A

Studying disorder in graphite-based systems by Raman spectroscopy
M. A. Pimenta, G. Dresselhaus, M. S. Dresselhaus, L. G. Cançado, A. Jorio and R. Saito
DOI: 10.1039/B613962K

Enhanced electrocatalytic performance of functionalized carbon nanotube electrodes for oxygen reduction in proton exchange membrane fuel cells
Ramaiyan Kannan, Unni Bipinlal, Sreekumar Kurungot and Vijayamohanan K. Pillai
DOI: 10.1039/C0CP02853C

Colloidal metal nanoparticles as a component of designed catalyst
Chun-Jiang Jia and Ferdi Schüth
DOI: 10.1039/C0CP02680H

Layer-by-layer assembly as a versatile bottom-up nanofabrication technique for exploratory research and realistic application
Katsuhiko Ariga, Jonathan P. Hill and Qingmin Ji
DOI: 10.1039/B700410A

Recent progress in SERS biosensing
Kyle C. Bantz, Audrey F. Meyer, Nathan J. Wittenberg, Hyungsoon Im, Özge Kurtuluş, Si Hoon Lee, Nathan C. Lindquist, Sang-Hyun Oh and Christy L. Haynes
DOI: 10.1039/C0CP01841D

Direct electro-deposition of graphene from aqueous suspensions
Matthias Hilder, Bjorn Winther-Jensen, Dan Li, Maria Forsyth and Douglas R. MacFarlane
DOI: 10.1039/C1CP20173E

Sandwich-type functionalized graphene sheet-sulfur nanocomposite for rechargeable lithium batteries
Yuliang Cao, Xiaolin Li, Ilhan A. Aksay, John Lemmon, Zimin Nie, Zhenguo Yang and Jun Liu
DOI: 10.1039/C0CP02477E

A thorough benchmark of density functional methods for general main group thermochemistry, kinetics, and noncovalent interactions
Lars Goerigk and Stefan Grimme
DOI: 10.1039/C0CP02984J

Overcoming excitonic bottleneck in organic solar cells: electronic structure and spectra of novel semiconducting donor–acceptor block copolymers
Zhenyu Guo, Samson A. Jenekhe and Oleg V. Prezhdo
DOI: 10.1039/C0CP02180F

Multiscale modeling of biological functions
Shina Caroline Lynn Kamerlin and Arieh Warshel
DOI: 10.1039/C0CP02823A

In situ Raman spectroscopy of H2 interaction with WO3 films
J. Z. Ou, M. H. Yaacob, M. Breedon, H. D. Zheng, J. L. Campbell, K. Latham, J. du. Plessis, W. Wlodarski and K. Kalantar-zadeh
DOI: 10.1039/C0CP02050H

Carbon materials for supercapacitor application
Elzbieta Frackowiak
DOI: 10.1039/B618139M

Air and water stable ionic liquids in physical chemistry
Frank Endres and Sherif Zein El Abedin
DOI: 10.1039/B600519P

Fe3O4 nanoparticle-integrated graphene sheets for high-performance half and full lithium ion cells
Liwen Ji, Zhongkui Tan, Tevye R. Kuykendall, Shaul Aloni, Shidi Xun, Eric Lin, Vincent Battaglia and Yuegang Zhang
DOI: 10.1039/C1CP20455F

Quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics methods can be more accurate than full quantum mechanics in systems involving dispersion correlations
W. M. C. Sameera and Feliu Maseras
DOI: 10.1039/C0CP02957B

In silico screening of metal–organic frameworks in separation applications
Rajamani Krishna and Jasper M. van Baten
DOI: 10.1039/C1CP20282K

A biophysical perspective of understanding nanoparticles at large
Pu Chun Ke and Monica H. Lamm
DOI: 10.1039/C0CP02891F

Hybrid simulations: combining atomistic and coarse-grained force fields using virtual sites
Andrzej J. Rzepiela, Martti Louhivuori, Christine Peter and Siewert J. Marrink
DOI: 10.1039/C0CP02981E

Hydrogen evolution via sunlight water splitting on an artificial butterfly wing architecture
Huihui Liu, QibinZhao, Han Zhou, Jian Ding, Di Zhang, Hanxing Zhu and Tongxiang Fan
DOI: 10.1039/C1CP20787C

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Fall ACS update: Plenary lectures on air, space and water

30 Aug 2011

On Sunday, at the ACS meeting plenary session, we heard 3 inspiring talks which highlighted the importance of this meeting’s theme: air, space and water.

Russell J. Hemley gave a fascinating lecture on his research into space; namely planetary gases, liquids and ices and how chemistry can help us to understand what goes on out there in all that darkness!

Neil Donahue followed, talking about air and his work on bulk aerosol properties. You can read all about his exciting research in his PCCP Perspective article published earlier this year:

Adventures in ozoneland: down the rabbit-hole
Neil M. Donahue, Greg T. Drozd, Scott A. Epstein, Albert A. Presto and Jesse H. Kroll
DOI: 10.1039/C0CP02564J

The final plenary lecture was given by Alan Townsend who highlighted the importance of water to all of chemistry and discussed its vital role in the nitrogen cycle.

Watch this space for more news from the Fall ACS in Denver!

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Fall ACS update: ‘HOT’ papers on SERS

28 Aug 2011

The 242^ndACS National Meeting started today in Denver, CO, USA, and the Physical Chemistry Division kicked off with a symposium on SERS which will run all week.

The Advances in SERS and Molecular Plasmonics symposium began with an exciting talk by Richard Van Duyne. His lecture entitled “Pushing the limits: Single molecule and single particle surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy”, followed by further talks on single molecule SERS and plasmonically-enhanced hot spots.

Read Richard van Duyne’s PCCP Perspective, which is from the recent PCCP web-themed issue on Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering:

Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy of dyes: from single molecules to the artists’ canvas
Kristin L. Wustholz, Christa L. Brosseau, Francesca Casadio and Richard P. Van Duyne
DOI: 10.1039/B904733F

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Evaporating ionic liquids

23 Aug 2011

Ionic liquids (ILs) do not have a detectable vapour pressure at room temperature. But scientists at the University of Nottingham have managed to measure the enthalpy of vaporisation of a series of imidazolium-based ILs with the help of mass spectrometry.

The authors found that the ILs evaporated as neutral ion pairs.

Read this exciting research in PCCP:

The vapour of imidazolium-based ionic liquids: a mass spectrometry study
A. Deyko, K. R. J. Lovelock, P. Licence and R. G. Jones
Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2011
DOI: 10.1039/C1CP21821B

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Ionic liquid research could help understand Alzheimer’s disease

18 Aug 2011

HOT PCCP Communication

The self assembly of proteins into fibrils has been implicated in conditions including Alzheimer’s disease.

Scientists in Australia have shown that the amyloid fibrilization of the peptide Aβ16-22 – an important fragment used to model full length Aβ – is promoted in protic ionic liquids (pILs) containing phosphate or sulphate ions and suppressed in pILs contain mesylate ions.

Read the full PCCP communication at:

The impact of ionic liquids on amyloid fibrilization of Aβ16-22: tuning the rate of fibrilization using a reverse Hofmeister strategy
Natalie Debeljuh, Colin J. Barrow and Nolene Byrne
Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2011
DOI: 10.1039/C1CP22256B

Changes in amyloid fibrilization over time

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Molecular Electronics themed issue

15 Aug 2011

PCCP is delighted to present its current issue which contains a collection of articles on the theme of Molecular Electronics, Guest edited by Itamar Willner, Roi Baer, Francoise Remacle and Shahal Ilani.

The cover image of this issue features the work of Denis Jacquemin and colleagues on the combined effect of stacking and solvation on the spontaneous mutation in DNA (DOI: 10.1039/C1CP20946A).

Highlights in the issue include:

Perspective
Covalent networks through on-surface chemistry in ultra-high vacuum: state-of-the-art and recent developments
Grégory Franc and André Gourdon
DOI: 10.1039/C1CP20700H

Communication
The origin of dips for the graphene-based DNA sequencing device
Yeonchoo Cho, Seung Kyu Min, Woo Youn Kim and Kwang S. Kim
DOI: 10.1039/C1CP20760A

Broadening of the derivative discontinuity in density functional theory
F. Evers and P. Schmitteckert
DOI: 10.1039/C1CP21247H

Browse this high-profile themed issue today!

Find out more about PCCP themed issues on our website.

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