Joanne Thomson – Chemical Society Reviews Blog

Author Archive

A centenary for solar fuels

25 Sep 2012

100 years ago an Italian chemist predicted that one day human beings would use sunlight to make fuel.

Professor Giacomo Ciamician, nine-time Nobel Prize nominee, envisaged a time when human beings would use “processes that hitherto have been the guarded secret of the plants” to harvest sunlight and make fuel.

To celebrate the remarkable recent scientific advances towards achieving this dream, the RSC has created a collection articles by leading international scientists as well as original commentaries setting out their opinions about the future. All articles in the collection are free to access until 27th October 2012.

Opinion
“Fast food” energy – Daniel Nocera argues that new research and development is needed to provide the nonlegacy world with the “fast food” equivalent of solar energy—light-weight and highly manufacturable solar capture and storage systems (Energy Environ. Sci., 2010,3, 993-995).

Running on sun – five international experts discuss the promise of artificial photosynthesis and the challenges that lie ahead (Published on the 25th of September 2012).

Which energy solution is best?
Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security – Mark Jacobson reviews and ranks major proposed energy-related solutions to global warming, air pollution mortality, and energy security (Energy Environ. Sci., 2009, 2, 148-173).

Learning from Nature
Photosynthetic energy conversion: natural and artificial – James Barber asks: can we address the energy/CO₂ problem by developing new photochemical technologies which mimic the water splitting enzyme of photosynthesis? (Chem. Soc. Rev., 2009, 38, 185-196).

Recent advances in hybrid photocatalysts for solar fuel production – Joachim Loo and colleagues investigate how to make robust photocatalytic hybrid Graphical abstract: Photosynthesis-to-fuels: from sunlight to hydrogen, isoprene, and botryococcene production systems for producing solar fuels (Energy Environ. Sci., 2012, 5, 5902-5918).

Photosynthesis-to-fuels: from sunlight to hydrogen, isoprene, and botryococcene production – Anastasios Melis explains how the primary products of photosynthesis can be transformed directly, in a single organism, into useful fuels and chemicals for human consumption (Energy Environ. Sci., 2012, 5, 5531-5539).

Raising awareness
Solar Fuels and Artificial Photosynthesis: Science and innovation to change our future energy options is a non-technical RSC report introducing the potential of solar fuels to become a viable alternative in our future energy landscape.

Click for more free-to-access energy-related articles

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Tutorial Reviews: new and improved

18 Sep 2012

Chem Soc Rev is known for publishing succinct and reader-friendly articles on exciting topics in the chemical sciences.

But we want to make our reviews even better.

That’s why we’re relaunching Tutorial Reviews. We want them to be even more useful for students and researchers new to a field.

So what’s different?

Well, Tutorial Reviews should now have a maximum of 50 references. Authors are asked to cite only the most seminal contributions to the field.

They also now contain a ‘Key Learning Points’ box. Here authors highlight what readers should expect to learn from their review.

And, of course, they will be jargon-free and easy to read.

All this means that Tutorial Reviews will be even more accessible to graduate students and beyond. They’ll provide an essential introduction to a field, serving as a springboard to further reading.

You’ll start to see the new style Tutorial Reviews appearing soon. Email us to let us know what you think.

Find out more – read the Author Instructions >

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Xiaogang Liu delivers Emerging Investigator Lectureship at ISACS9

12 Sep 2012

Congratulations to Professor Xiaogang Liu who delivered his Chem Soc Rev Emerging Investigator Lecture at ISACS9: Challenges in Nanoscience earlier this month.

ISACS9 brought together exceptional researchers – all leading names in their field – for an outstanding programme covering nanomedicine, nanocatalysis, functional nanomaterials, nanomachines and devices, nanoplasmonics and nanospectroscopy.

Do you know someone who has made an exceptional contribution to their research field?

Nominate them for the 2013 Chem Soc Rev Lectureship >

The ISACS series will be back in 2013. Visit the conference homepage to keep up-to-date with the latest news.

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Chem Soc Rev Lecture Award presented at Ultrafast Dynamic Imaging of Matter Conference

16 Jul 2012

It was a lecture award for which the good luck phrase ‘break a leg’ became a little too literal. But a year on and fully recovered from the broken ankle that thwarted his conference trips in late 2011, I am pleased to report that Stephen Leone presented his 2011 Chem Soc Rev Award Lecture entitled ‘Tracking electron and nuclear dynamics with femtosecond/attosecond X-ray spectroscopy’ at 2012 Ultrafast Dynamic Imaging of Matter in Banff, Canada, earlier this month.

: Conference chair David Villeneuve (left) presents Stephen Leone with the 2011 Chem Soc Rev Lecture Award

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On the up: Chem Soc Rev Impact Factor leaps to 28.767

28 Jun 2012

The 2011 Journal Citation Reports ® (Thomson Reuters, 2012) have just been released and it’s great news for Chem Soc Rev.

Our Impact Factor* (IF) now stands at 28.767.

A big thank you to the authors of all the excellent reviews that contributed to this impressive figure. And, of course, we thank our Editorial and Advisory Boards and referees for their dedication and commitment.

Find out why so many scientists rely on Chem Soc Rev to keep them up-to-date with the frontiers of the chemical science – read issue 1, 2012 for free.

Find out how other RSC journals are ranked in the latest Impact Factor release >

*The IF provides an indication of the average number of citations per paper. Produced annually, IFs are calculated by dividing the number of citations in a year, by the number of citeable articles published in the preceding two years.

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Outstanding organocatalysis – An article collection

13 Jun 2012

Catalysts are key to some of the most important reactions on the planet; a world without the Haber process or catalysts to crack crude oil is difficult to imagine. Not to mention the enzymatic reactions that are crucial to all life on earth.

Organocatalysts are an important class of catalyst and consist of carbon-based molecules often functionalised with oxygen, sulfur, nitrogen or phosphorus. They have shown promise in a range of reactions including hydrogenation, Diels-Alder, Michael and Mannich reactions, and are of particular interest in asymmetric reactions.

To help keep you up-to-date with the latest in cutting-edge organocatalytic research we have made the following articles free to access until 9^th July. After reading all these there will be little you won’t know about the exciting world of organocatalysis!

Click here for the full list of free articles

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Solar energy review collection

11 Jun 2012

Creating and securing environmentally sustainable energy is a global challenge. As part of the Royal Society of Chemistry’s ‘Chemistry for Tomorrow’s World’ initiatives, we are promoting solar energy and the role the chemical sciences can play in providing solutions.

Chem Soc Rev has recently published some great reviews on the theme of solar energy. Read them today to find out how chemistry can support change.

Sensitizer molecular structure-device efficiency relationship in dye sensitized solar cells
John N. Clifford, Eugenia Martínez-Ferrero, Aurélien Viterisi and Emilio Palomares
Chem. Soc. Rev., 2011, 40, 1635-1646

Photodeposition of metal sulfide quantum dots on titanium(IV) dioxide and the applications to solar energy conversion
Hiroaki Tada, Musashi Fujishima and Hisayoshi Kobayashi
Chem. Soc. Rev., 2011, 40, 4232-4243

Thermodynamics and kinetics of CO₂, CO, and H⁺ binding to the metal centre of CO₂ reduction catalysts
Jacob Schneider, Hongfei Jia, James T. Muckerman and Etsuko Fujita
Chem. Soc. Rev., 2012, DOI:10.1039/C1CS15278E

Photosensitized electron transfer processes of nanocarbons applicable to solar cells
Francis D’Souza and Osamu Ito
Chem. Soc. Rev., 2012, 41, 86-96

Charge transfer in organic molecules for solar cells: theoretical perspective
Yi Zhao and WanZhen Liang
Chem. Soc. Rev., 2012, DOI: 10.1039/C1CS15207F

Excitation energy transfer in multiporphyrin arrays with cyclic architectures: towards artificial light-harvesting antenna complexes
Jaesung Yang, Min-Chul Yoon, Hyejin Yoo, Pyosang Kim and Dongho Kim
Chem. Soc. Rev., 2012, DOI: 10.1039/C2CS35022J

Also of interest:
Artificial Photosynthesis – a ChemComm web theme

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Directing Biosynthesis – oral abstract deadline 11 May!

09 May 2012

Please don’t miss this last opportunity to submit an oral abstract now to be part of a high profile conference featuring contributions from the most active groups in the UK, Europe, the USA and Japan working in this rapidly developing area.

This meeting builds on the two previous extremely successful conferences in a subject area which remains highly topical. As significant opportunities exist for engineering biosynthetic pathways in bacteria, fungi and plants for the directed biosynthesis of new natural products with new and beneficial properties. We expect the programme this year to generate a high profile event that you will not want to miss.

Confirmed Invited speakers:

Ikuro Abe, University of Tokyo, Japan
Mervyn Bibb, John Innes Centre, UK
David W. Christianson, University of Pennsylvania, USA
Christian Hertweck, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany
Ben Liu, The University of Texas at Austin, USA
Professor Jim Naismith, University of St Andrews, UK
Joern Piel, University of Bonn, Germany
Professor Chris Schofield, University of Oxford, UK
David H Sherman, University of Michigan, USA
Dr David R Spring, University of Cambridge, UK
Tom Simpson, FRS, University of Bristol, UK
Yi Tang, UCLA, USA

NOW CONFIRMED – Craig Townsend, John Hopkins University, USA

A special symposium will take place within the Directing Biosynthesis III programme, recognising the achievements of three 2011 RSC award winners. Each of the winners will give a keynote lecture within the symposium.

Find out more >

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Focus: Studying biology using chemical tools

01 May 2012

Graphical abstract: P450BM3 (CYP102A1): connecting the dots Chemical techniques are critical for studying and manipulating biological systems. We’ve published a great selection of reviews at the interface of chemistry and biology, including these recent articles:

Mass spectrometry based tools to investigate protein–ligand interactions for drug discovery
Kamila J. Pacholarz, Rachel A. Garlish, Richard J. Taylor and Perdita E. Barran
Chem. Soc. Rev., 2012, DOI: 10.1039/C2CS35035A

Diversity-oriented synthesis: producing chemical tools for dissecting biology
Cornelius J. O’ Connor, Henning S. G. Beckmann and David R. Spring
Chem. Soc. Rev., 2012, DOI: 10.1039/C2CS35023H

Assays for human telomerase activity: progress and prospects
Xiaoming Zhou and Da Xing
Chem. Soc. Rev., 2012, DOI: 10.1039/C2CS35045A

Mass spectrometry-based proteomics: existing capabilities and future directions
Thomas E. Angel, Uma K. Aryal, Shawna M. Hengel, Erin S. Baker, Ryan T. Kelly, Errol W. Robinson and Richard D. Smith
Chem. Soc. Rev., 2012,41, 3912-3928

Autophagy-regulating small molecules and their therapeutic applications
Kyung-Hwa Baek, Jihye Park and Injae Shin
Chem. Soc. Rev., 2012,41, 3245-3263

Probing the kinome in real time with fluorescent peptides
Juan A. González-Vera
Chem. Soc. Rev., 2012,41, 1652-1664

Upconversion nanophosphors for small-animal imaging
Jing Zhou, Zhuang Liu and Fuyou Li
Chem. Soc. Rev., 2012,41, 1323-1349

Do you have an idea for a review? Let us know >

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Chem Soc Rev Emerging Investigator Lectureship winner 2012

01 May 2012

On behalf of the Chem Soc Rev Editorial Board, I am delighted to announce that Professor Xiaogang Liu (National University of Singapore and Institute of Materials Research Engineering, A*STAR) has won the Chem Soc Rev Emerging Investigator Lectureship 2012.

This annual award recognises an emerging scientist who has made a significant contribution to their research field. The Editorial Board praised Professor Liu’s research in the field of nanoscience, particularly his development of luminescent upconversion nanoparticles and contributions to nanoparticle-based ultrasensitive detection of metal ions and biological molecules.

Professor Liu will present his award lecture at ISACS9: Challenges in Nanoscience taking place in Xiamen, China, on 31 August – 3 September.

Find out more about Professor Liu’s work in these review articles:
Upconversion nanoparticles in biological labeling, imaging, and therapy
Feng Wang, Debapriya Banerjee, Yongsheng Liu, Xueyuan Chen and Xiaogang Liu
Analyst, 2010,135, 1839-1854

Emerging functional nanomaterials for therapeutics
Xuejia Xue, Feng Wang and Xiaogang Liu
J. Mater. Chem., 2011,21, 13107-13127

Recent advances in the chemistry of lanthanide-doped upconversion nanocrystals
Feng Wang and Xiaogang Liu
Chem. Soc. Rev., 2009,38, 976-989

Registration is open for Challenges in Nanoscience (ISACS9) – sign up today to hear Professor Liu’s award lecture plus a host of other world leading experts

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