NJC Blog

This month, the outside cover illustrates a paper written by Dr João Rocha (University of Aveiro, Portugal) and his three colleagues.

The authors have been interested in the design of new metal organic frameworks (MOFs) with Ln active sites for light-emitting devices. Recently, they have shown that post-synthetic modification of MOFs is an excellent route for preparing infrared and visible-light emitters. In this article, they wish to extend their studies to other linker modifications, in order to firmly establish the general character of this approach. Their method allows preservation of the original MOFs structure with the addition of new properties, combining the microporosity of the MOFs host and the functionality of lanthanide ions.

Engineering lanthanide-optical centres in IRMOF-3 by post-synthetic modification
Reda M. Abdelhameed, Luis D. Carlos, Artur M. S. Silva and João Rocha.
New J. Chem., 2015, 39, 4249-4258. DOI: 10.1039/C4NJ02382J.

Our inside cover is proposed by Professor Qin Wei (University of Jinan, China).

Professor Wei and his co-workers developed an electrochemiluminescent immunosensor based on CdS–Fe3O4 nanocomposites for the detection of Ochratoxin A. Their method provides a powerful avenue for the design of an ultrasensitive electrochemiluminescence detection method, showing great promise in food detection.

An electrochemiluminescent immunosensor based on CdS–Fe3O4 nanocomposite electrodes for the detection of Ochratoxin A
Xiaohui Lv, Yueyun Li, Tao Yan, Xuehui Pang, Lihua Hu, Bin Du and Qin Wei.
New J. Chem., 2015, 39, 4259-4264. DOI: 10.1039/C5NJ00320B.

Discover the full June issue here

Dr Kanamori (Kyoto University, Japan) and his colleagues’ work illustrates the outside cover this month.

Hierarchically porous monolithic materials are used as adsorbent, separation media and catalyst (support) due to their excellent accessibility to the pore surface and high permeability as well as easy recyclability and reusability. In this article, the authors report the synthesis of hierarchically porous zirconium phosphate (ZrP) monoliths with size-tunable co-continuous macropores from ionic precursors via a sol–gel process accompanied by phase separation followed by supercritical drying. They demonstrate the applicability of this new monolithic porous material as a green platform for the removal of toxic metal ions in aqueous solutions under continuous flow conditions, which shows promising results as a water purification device.

Synthesis of robust hierarchically porous zirconium phosphate monolith for efficient ion adsorption
Yang Zhu, Taiyo Shimizu, Takara Kitajima, Kei Morisato, Nirmalya Moitra, Nicolas Brun, Tsutomu Kiyomura, Kazuyoshi Kanamori, Kazuyuki Takeda, Hiroki Kurata, Masamoto Tafu and Kazuki Nakanishi.
New J. Chem., 2015, 39, 2444-2450. DOI: 10.1039/C4NJ01749H.

The inside cover was designed by Dr Mukherjee (CSIR-Central Glass & Ceramic Research Institute, India). In their article, Dr Mukherjee and co-workers report the synthesis of amine (–NH₂) functionalized graphite nanosheets from microcrystalline graphite by two simple steps of chemical functionalization involving nitration followed by reduction. These nanosheets were further reacted with polyethylene glycol chains to give a water-soluble graphite nanosheet composite, which was studied as a potential drug carrier for targeted anticancer drug delivery.

Synthesis of amine functionalized graphite nanosheets and their water-soluble derivative for drug loading and controlled release
Amrita Chakravarty, Koushik Bhowmik, Goutam De and Arnab Mukherjee.
New J. Chem., 2015, 39, 2451-2458. DOI: 10.1039/C4NJ01545B.

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This month’s outside cover illustrates the work of Nan-nan Liu (Harbin University of Commerce, China) and her colleague Yi-hong Ding, in which they theoretically predict a new type of metal-metal bond passing through the ligand in inverse sandwich compounds. The molecules are roughly estimated as potentially electro-conductive by the low HOMO–LUMO gaps. According to the authors, their work could raise interest in the structural properties of inverse sandwich compounds.

Metal-metal bond passing through the arene ligand: Theoretical study on the inverse sandwich X[Sc-C8H8-Sc]nX (X = F, Cl, Br; n = 1, 2)
Nan-nan Liu and Yi-hong Ding, New J. Chem., 2015, 39, 1558-1562. DOI: 10.1039/C4NJ01832J.

Dr Unnikrishnan Kuzhiumparambil (School of Chemistry and Forensic Science, Australia) designed the inside cover of this month’s issue. In their paper, Dr Kuzhiumparambil and his co-workers explain the formation of two stable oxidation products upon reaction of potassium permanganate with testosterone. They show that these reaction products have the potential to serve as unique markers for drug testing laboratories to develop methods that can detect steroid abuse and/or chemical manipulation involving permanganate by athletes.

Oxidation of testosterone by permanganate and its implication in sports drug testing
Unnikrishnan Kuzhiumparambil, Shimpei Watanabe and Shanlin Fu, New J. Chem., 2015, 39, 1597-1602. DOI: 10.1039/C4NJ01478B.

This month, our outside cover illustrates an article written by Dr Zdeněk Sofer (Institute of Chemical Technology, Czech Republic) and his colleagues, focusing on graphite oxides.

In their paper, the authors show that more complex products (large amounts of complex ions) than water vapor and carbon mono- and dioxide are produced during the exfoliation process. The team came to the conclusion that the full understanding of the exfoliation mechanism and products is crucial for reproducible scalable synthesis of reduced graphenes on a large scale.

Carbon fragments are ripped off from graphite oxide sheets during their thermal reduction
Ondřej Jankovský, Štěpánka Hrdličková Kučková, Martin Pumera, Petr Šimek, David Sedmidubský and Zdeněk Sofer
New J. Chem., 2014, 38, 5700-5705. DOI: 10.1039/C4NJ00871E

Prof. Kingo Uchida (Ryukoku University, Japan) and his co-workers have designed the inside cover. They focused their research on the development of molecular switches, in particular photoactive systems that are a major challenge in the context of molecular devices and light-responsive systems.

In their paper, they present the synthesis of a diarylethene with an attached malachite green moiety and study the photochromism and halochromism of six states (neutral, mono- and dicationic states under both open- and closed-ring isomeric states) to clarify the effect of combining two dyes. The data obtained will contribute to the design of pH sensitive photoswitches, especially for biological applications and their successful incorporation in various applications and in switchable molecular-based devices.

A photo- and halochromic multicolor switching system consisting of diarylethene and malachite green moieties
Yuto Tatsumi, Noriko Fujinaga, Megumi Kasuno, Masakazu Morimoto, Satoshi Yokojima, Shinichiro Nakamura and Kingo Uchida
New J. Chem., 2014, 38, 5706-5714. DOI: 10.1039/C4NJ00434E

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Also discover a Focus, written by Dr Borkovec (University of Geneva, Switzerland) and his colleagues, dedicated to the intrinsic approach describing microscopic ionization equilibria. The authors present an intrinsic description with examples of increasing complexity, thereby highlighting various strategies to extract the relevant parameters. They also address the notion of group transferability, then the central idea of cluster expansion of the free energy, and finally molecular symmetries and homologous series.

The October outside cover, designed by Marcus Herlitschke (Jülich Centre for Neutron Science, Germany) et al., presents their paper in which the first experimental results concerning unusual magnetic properties of FeNCN are reported.

This study reveals the unconventional behaviour of the magnetic parameters below the Néel temperature of 350 K. The comparison of the obtained data with literature data of iron monoxide reveals very similar iron phonon modes with a small softening and a slightly reduced sound velocity. The authors showed that iron monoxide and iron carbodiimide exhibit a similar local iron environment with a mean nearest neighbour distance of about 2.2 Å in an octahedral coordination by oxygen or nitrogen, respectively.

The authors also presented measurements of FeNCN, featuring similarities and differences to the related iron monoxide. In summary, the iron carbodiimide is a particularly attractive target for magnetic investigations using Mössbauer spectroscopy and magnetometry.

Magnetism and lattice dynamics of FeNCN compared to FeO
M. Herlitschke, A. L. Tchougréeff, A. V. Soudackov, B. Klobes, L. Stork, R. Dronskowski and R. P. Hermann.
New J. Chem., 2014, 38, 4670-4677. DOI: 10.1039/C4NJ00097H.

The inside cover illustrates a paper written by Karl Wallace (University of Southern Mississippi, USA) and his colleagues who are interested in the design of new molecular probes.

The authors have synthesized two coumarin-enamine chemodosimeters which can selectively detect the cyanide ion and investigated the spectroscopic properties in various organic solvents.

An activated coumarin-enamine Michael acceptor for CN−
Aaron B. Davis, Rachel E. Lambert, Frank R. Fronczek, Peter J. Cragg and Karl J. Wallace.
New J. Chem., 2014, 38, 4678-4683. DOI: 10.1039/C4NJ00862F.

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