2013 PCCP – Chemical Society of Japan Prizes

A prize ceremony was held at the 93rd Annual Meeting of the Chemical Society of Japan for the winners of the 2013 PCCP Prizes for Outstanding Achievement of Young Scientists in Physical Chemistry and Chemical Physics. The winners each received a commemorative book, a PCCP Prize certificate and a financial award.

PCCP-CSJ prize award ceremony 2013

Top left to top right: Prof. Eiichi Nakamura, Mr Nobuyuki Kawashima (CSJ Secretary General). Bottom left to bottom right: Dr Robert Parker (RSC Chief Executive), Dr Yasuhide Inokuma (Prizewinner), Dr Yusuke Yamauchi (Prizewinner), Dr Yasutomo Segawa (Prizewinner), Prof. Kohei Tamao (CSJ President).

The prizewinners:

  • Dr Yusuke Yamauchi (National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS)) for his work on “Nano-to-Microgram Scale X-ray Crystallography of Non-crystalline Compounds Using Crystalline Sponges”
  • Dr Yasutomo Segawa (Nagoya University) for his research on “Size-selective Synthesis and Optical Properties of Carbon Nanorings”
  • Dr Yasuhide Inokuma (The University of Tokyo) for his work on “Rational Synthesis of Nanoporous Platinum Particles with Multiple Architectures toward Highly Active Electrocatalysts”
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    Halogen bonding and other σ-hole interactions

    Peter Politzer, Jane Murray and Timothy Clark review sigma-hole bonding in their recent PCCP Perspective and its contribution to the understanding of the halogen bond and other non-covalent interactions. They detail the historic background of the concept of sigma-hole bonding from both experimental and theoretical perspectives, and present the most recent theoretical findings on the fascinating  character of this class of molecular interactions.

    Read this Perspective today:

    Halogen bonding and other σ-hole interactions: a perspective
    Peter Politzer, Jane S. Murray and Timothy Clark
    DOI: 10.1039/C3CP00054K

    Halogen bonding and other σ-hole interactions

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    NMR crystallography used to determine structures of powdered pharmaceutical compounds

    Powder crystallography of pharmaceutical materials by combined crystal structure prediction and solid-state 1H NMR spectroscopyStructural characterisation of powdered solids remains a significant challenge in modern chemistry. Graeme Day, Lyndon Emsley and co-workers have used a combination of computational and solid state NMR approaches to determine the structures of powdered samples of small organic compounds.

    The group show that their ab initio approach can successfully be used to identify the structures of cocaine, flutamide and flufenamic acid in their recent PCCP paper.

    Read this HOT article today:

    Powder crystallography of pharmaceutical materials by combined crystal structure prediction and solid-state 1H NMR spectroscopy
    Maria Baias, Cory M. Widdifield, Jean-Nicolas Dumez, Hugh P. G. Thompson, Timothy G. Cooper, Elodie Salager, Sirena Bassil, Robin S. Stein, Anne Lesage, Graeme M. Day and Lyndon Emsley
    DOI: 10.1039/C3CP41095A

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    Towards understanding the complex biophysics of Alzheimer’s disease

    Scientists from the USA provide important insights into the complex mechanism of amyloid-induced membrane disruption in their recent PCCP article, which will be included in our soon-to-be-published themed issue on biophysical studies of protein misfolding and amyloid diseases.

    Zheng et al. investigated the adsorption, orientation and suface interaction of the p3 pentamer with lipid bilayers composed of both pure zwitterionic POPC and mixed anionic POPC-POPG lipids using molecular dynamics simulations.Molecular interactions of Alzheimer amyloid-β oligomers with neutral and negatively charged lipid bilayers

    A pathological hall-mark of Alzheimer’s disease is the co-existence of extracellular plaques of amyloid-β and intracellular tangles of tau protein in the brain. It is generally thought that the interactions of Aβ oligomers with neuronal membranes are responsible for brain cell death and subsequent damage to learning and memory functions, but the exact details of the process are unclear. This work is valuable for future development of therapeutic agents and approactes to disrupt Aβ adsorption, aggregation and surface interaction on the membrane.

    Read this HOT article today:

    Molecular interactions of Alzheimer amyloid-β oligomers with neutral and negatively charged lipid bilayers
    Xiang Yu, Qiuming Wang, Qingfen Pan, Feimeng Zhou and Jie Zheng
    DOI: 10.1039/C3CP44448A

    You may be interested to see our online collection of biophysics and biophysical chemistry in PCCP.

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    Inclusion of atomic polarization in calculations of partitioning between water and lipid bilayers

    Implicit inclusion of atomic polarization in modeling of partitioning between water and lipid bilayersJoakim Jämbeck and Alexander Lyubartsev from Stockholm University describe an effective and novel way to account for atomic polarization in simulations of the partitioning of small molecules between water and lipid bilayers.

    Their approach is a useful tool for rational drug design and for understanding anesthetic and toxic action.

    Read this HOT article today:

    Implicit inclusion of atomic polarization in modeling of partitioning between water and lipid bilayers
    Joakim P. M. Jämbeck and Alexander P. Lyubartsev
    DOI: 10.1039/C3CP44472D

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    More accurate modelling of electron transfer in DNA

    Table of contents imageScientists using computational techniques to look at electron-transfer processes in DNA have employed a surface-hopping approach to predict the degree of charge localisation across nucleobases. The technique should allow more accurate modeling of the effects of charge transfer within the molecule.

    Different computational approaches often predict varying degrees of charge delocalisation. The commonly used mean-field method often exaggerates the degree to which charge is spread out, because of the self-interaction error inherent to DFT modeling. The surface-hopping method used in this study, however, does not suffer from such difficulties and treats transitions between charge states as distinct jumps between states.

    Check out the full details of this exciting article:

    Efficient algorithms for the simulation of non-adiabatic electron transfer in complex molecular systems: application to DNA
    Tomáš Kubař and Marcus Elstner
    DOI: 10.1039/C3CP44619K

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    Non-lanthanide materials for telecommunication?

    Thomas Just Sørensen is a guest web-writer for PCCP. He is currently a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

    Hand holiding fibreopticsTelecommunication operates primarily in three wavelength windows: 750 nm to 850 nm, 1310 nm and 1530 nm to 1560 nm; where the latter is the best as a consequence of low loss-levels and the invention of erbium signal amplifiers. Nevertheless, other carbon based materials are sought in an attempt to replace, and maybe supersede, the rare earth containing systems that are used today.
    Xiaoting Liu and co-workers have in ‘New insights into two-photon absorption properties of functionalized aza-BODIPY dyes at telecommunication wavelengths: a theoretical study’ embarked on a road toward the better understanding of two-photon cross-sections. In this particular case, systems based on BODIPY dyes are under theoretical scrutiny, in attempt to find a system that can work—via two-photon absorption—in the optical windows used in telecommunication.

    The fact that the direct absorption of the f–f transitions are low—typically with molar absorptivities below 1 M-1cm-1—are the reason why two-photon processes might be able to compete with absorption by lanthanide ions. The systems studied in the paper never quite reach the 1510 nm window, but do make it to 1310 nm by two-photon absorption. In fact, single photon absorption of some of the systems under investigation is found to be in the high energy/high frequency range of the telecommunication window around 800 nm.

    Intrigued? For the molecular structures and much, much more see:

    New insights into two-photon absorption properties of functionalized aza-BODIPY dyes at telecommunication wavelengths: a theoretical study
    Xiaoting Liu, Jilong Zhang, Kai Li, Xiaobo Sun, Zhijian Wu, Aimin Ren and Jikang Feng
    Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2013, 15, 4666-4676
    DOI: 10.1039/C3CP44435J

    by Dr Thomas Just Sørensen

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    Gold? Silver? Does it matter?

    Thomas Just Sørensen is a guest web-writer for PCCP. He is currently a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

    Figure from DOI: 10.1039/C2CP43365F The plasmons of bimetallic nanorods appear by cursory inspection to be independent of the composition! Pure gold, silver-gold-silver, pure silver, it matters not.
    The ratio (length) of the nanorod, which is gold, can be varied from 0 nm to 200 nm in the 200 nm long nanorods, without changing the shape or position of the plasmonic bands. It happens to be coincidental that 200 nm long rods give this result, as the dielectric function of silver and gold are similar at the energies the plasmonic resonances are found at in 200 nm long nanorods.

    A team of Korean scientist have been investigating mixed-metal nanorods, either 100 nm or 200 nm long. They find that the interfaces between the metals have little effect on the plasmonic resonances in the system. The single most important factor is the match of the dielectric function for the two metals, if the functions match the composition of the metal nanorod can be varied without any effect in the plasmons. A very interesting conclusion.

    by Dr Thomas Just Sørensen

    For the full details of this exciting article see:

    Localized plasmon resonances of bimetallic AgAuAg nanorods
    Sung-Hyun Ahn, Deok-Soo Kim, Daeha Seo, Wonjun Choi, Gi-Ra Yi, Hyunjoon Song, Q-Han Park and Zee Hwan Kim
    DOI: 10.1039/C2CP43365F

    This article is part of the PCCP themed collection on Optical studies of single metal nanoparticles. Check out the rest of the articles today.

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    Gold nano-islands on glass

    Scientists from Israel and Japan have found a simple and effective route to the fabrication of stable Au island films, which are very useful in the field of localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) sensing. They additionally present a detailed kinetic study of the formation of gold nano-islands from gold films and their subsequent embedding into a glass substrate during annealing, in their recent PCCP paper.

    Mechanism of morphology transformation during annealing of nanostructured gold films on glass

    The group used a combination of in-situ high temperature spectroscopy, high-resolution scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy, and simulations using the Multiple Multipole Program approach to show that the morphological transformation of Au films proceeds via three processes exhibiting different time scales. They found that the embedding process is strongly temperature-dependent, but not dependant on the annealing atmosphere.

    Discontinuous films of certain metals, such as gold, show a characteristic absorption band in the optical spectrum, attributed to excitation of localised surface plasmons, which can be influenced by the effective refractive index (RI) of the surrounding environment. This makes nanostructured metal films useful in chemical and biological sensing, as it is possible to quantify analyte binding to the metal surface by monitoring changes in the surface plasmon extinction band resulting from the local RI changes. A common problem in the preparation of reliable LSPR transducers for sensing, is poor adhesion between nanostructured Au films and substrates.

    Read this HOT PCCP article today:

    Mechanism of morphology transformation during annealing of nanostructured gold films on glass
    Tanya Karakouz, Alexander B. Tesler, Takumi Sannomiya, Yishay Feldman, Alexander Vaskevich and Israel Rubinstein
    DOI: 10.1039/C3CP50198A

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    Top ten most accessed articles in January

    The following articles in PCCP were the top ten most accessed in January:-

    Graphene oxide for effective radionuclide removal
    Anna Yu. Romanchuk, Alexander S. Slesarev, Stepan N. Kalmykov, Dmitry V. Kosynkin and James M. Tour
    DOI: 10.1039/C2CP44593J

    Evidence of catalyzed oxidation of Li2O2 for rechargeable Li–air battery applications
    Jonathon R. Harding, Yi-Chun Lu, Yasuhiro Tsukada and Yang Shao-Horn
    DOI: 10.1039/C2CP41761H

    Electronic interactions and charge transfers of metal atoms and clusters on oxide surfaces
    Gianfranco Pacchioni
    DOI: 10.1039/C2CP43731G

    Proton reduction to hydrogen in biological and chemical systems
    Phong D. Tran and James Barber
    DOI: 10.1039/C2CP42413D

    Graphene-based electrochemical energy conversion and storage: fuel cells, supercapacitors and lithium ion batteries
    Junbo Hou , Yuyan Shao, Michael W. Ellis, Robert B. Moore and Baolian Yi
    DOI: 10.1039/C1CP21915D

    Increasing organic solar cell efficiency with polymer interlayers
    Felix Deschler, Daniel Riedel, Bernhard Ecker, Elizabeth von Hauff, Enrico Da Como and Roderick C. I. MacKenzie
    DOI: 10.1039/C2CP43876C

    Plasmonic photocatalysts: harvesting visible light with noble metal nanoparticles
    Peng Wang, Baibiao Huang, Ying Dai and Myung-Hwan Whangbo
    DOI: 10.1039/C2CP40823F

    Temperature effects in dye-sensitized solar cells
    Sonia R. Raga and Francisco Fabregat-Santiago
    DOI: 10.1039/C2CP43220J

    Persistent misconceptions regarding SERS
    Martin Moskovits
    DOI: 10.1039/C2CP44030J

    Reversible chemical delithiation/lithiation of LiFePO4: towards a redox flow lithium-ion battery
    Qizhao Huang , Hong Li , Michael Grätzel and Qing Wang
    DOI: 10.1039/C2CP44466F

    We hope you enjoyed reading the articles – please sign up for the free PCCP table of contents e-alerts to make sure you keep up to date with the latest research being published in the journal

    On behalf of the Editorial Board of  PCCP, we invite you to submit your best research to us today!

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