NJC Blog

Our first author is Dr Kenta Adachi, who is Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Science & Engineering at Yamaguchi University, Japan. His current research interests focus on the optical and spectroscopic properties of organic/inorganic hybrid nanoparticles and clusters, along with the design, assembly, and use of nanoparticle-tagged biomolecules as analytical tools for sensing, imaging, and diagnosis. In his NJC letter, an approach is presented for the first time to induce chirality in aggregates of achiral organic dyes by chiral amino acid molecules pre-adsorbed on the metal oxide colloid surface. The authors believe that these findings, together with the possibility of fine-tuning both amino acids and organic dyes on the metal oxide colloid surface, open new promising ways towards the design of efficient chiral supramolecular sensors and devices.

Dr Cyrille Monnereau is Assistant Professor at the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon (France). Dr Monnereau is interested in molecular engineering of chromophores and fluorophores, especially for biophotonics applications. In recent years, the authors have been trying to develop two-photon absorbing chromophores for fluorescence bio-imaging and photodynamic therapy, which could be easily and efficiently delivered into cells or target organs. The simple and adaptable ATRP methodology used in their NJC paper allowed the authors to progress significantly towards this aim, with minimal synthetic effort.

Our last chemist for this month is Dr Marina Lezhnina, who is Research Fellow in the Institute for Optical Technologies at Münster University of Applied Sciences, Germany. Her research activity focuses on the synthesis of luminescent species in non-classical matrices, with applications in lighting technologies and analytics. Her NJC paper contributes to the search for efficient luminescing rare earth complexes with versatile potential for linkage to secondary substrates. The authors demonstrated that tris-ß-diketonate-Europium complexes could readily be co-ligated with epoxyphenanthroline, yet widely retaining the advantageous optical properties of higly efficient phenanthroline or bipyridyl analogues, while the epoxy group provides a fascinating prospect for coupling to polymer backbones, activated surfaces, and last but not least to biologically relevant substrates like proteins and peptides (see the glutathione model in the present publication).

Check back next month for more profiles of NJC authors!

Our first author is Matthias Tamm, who is Full Professor and Head of the Institute of Inorganic and Analytical Chemistry at the Technische Universität Braunschweig, Germany. His current research interests are focused on Organometallic Chemistry, in particular homogeneous catalysis, alkyne metathesis, frustrated Lewis pairs and cycloheptatrienyl complexes. In a joint contribution to NJC, his group and the group of Prof. Yaofeng Chen (Shanghai) have brought together two comparatively uncommon aromatic p-systems, the formally (!) cationic tropylium ion and the boratabenzene anion, in 16-electron zirconium sandwich complexes. Addition of nucleophiles such as phosphines could have expected to occur either at the boron or at the zirconium atom, with the latter being exclusively observed.

“Boratatrozircenes: cycloheptatrienyl zirconium boratabenzene sandwich complexes – evaluation of potential η6–η5 hapticity interconversions” Andreas Glöckner, Peng Cui, Yaofeng Chen, Constantin G. Daniliuc, Peter G. Jones and Matthias Tamm, New J. Chem., 2012, 36, 1392-1398. DOI: 10.1039/C2NJ40059F.

Our next author is Giancarlo Cravotto from the University of Torino (Italy), who is Full Professor of Organic Chemistry and Director of the Department of Drug Science and Technology. Prof. Cravatto’s research activity is documented by more than 200 scientific peer-reviewed papers, several book chapters and patents. His main research interests are the synthesis of fine chemicals, cyclodextrin derivatives and bioactive compounds. These studies have paved the road to innovative synthetic procedures and the preparation of new catalysts and ionic liquids, exploiting non conventional techniques such as high-intensity ultrasound, microwaves, flow chemistry and ball milling. Prof. Cravotto is Editor of two international journals: Ultrasonics Sonochemistry (Elsevier) and Green Processing and Synthesis (De Gruyter).

 

When asked why did he decide to submit this work to NJC, Giancarlo answered: “NJC covers new fields of research and innovative technologies in a wide scenario of chemical activities. Our paper is an eloquent example of innovative synthetic procedure under non-conventional technique (mechanochemistry).”

 

“Suzuki cross-couplings of (hetero)aryl chlorides in the solid-state” Giancarlo Cravotto, Davide Garella, Silvia Tagliapietra, Achim Stolle, Stefan Schüßler, Silke E. S. Leonhardt and Bernd Ondruschka, New J. Chem., 2012, 36, 1304-1307. DOI: 10.1039/C2NJ40064B.

 

Chaojing Lu is Professor of Physics and Materials Science at the faculty of the College of Physics Science of Qingdao University in Qingdao, Shandong province (P. R. China). His current research interests are focused on ferroelectric materials of perovskite structure, including the orientation growth of ferroelectric thin films on metal electrodes, in-situ TEM study of ferroelectric domains, and ferroelectric/multiferroic nanomaterials for applications in both photocatalysis and photoelectric conversion. In this NJC Letter, Chaojing and co-workers report the synthesis of Bi₂Fe₄O₉ nanocrystals via a simple chemical co-precipitation method. The nanocrystals display a high photo-to-current conversion efficiency under visible irradiation, which is promising for applications in photoelectrode and solar energy conversion.

 

The interdisciplinary nature of the work, involving chemistry, physics, nanotechnology, and energy sciences made NJC a logical choice in the authors’ eyes. In addition, they appreciate that “the NJC review and publication processes are pretty fast.”

 

Outside of the lab, Chaojing’s favorite activity is friendship dancing and mountain climbing. He often climbs both Fushan and Laoshan mountains in Qingdao and enjoys the beautiful scenes of the two mountains very much. He is also easily inebriated in gentler dancing steps and classical dancing music. If he could not be a scientist, Chaojing would be a chef or a surgeon.

 

“Photo-to-current response of Bi2Fe4O9 nanocrystals synthesized through a chemical co-precipitation process” Yongping Li, Yongcheng Zhang, Wanneng Ye, Jianqiang Yu, Chaojing Lu and Linhua Xia, New J. Chem., 2012, 36, 1297-1300. DOI: 10.1039/C2NJ40039A.

 

Our last chemist for this month is Markus Albrecht, who is Professor of Organic Chemistry at the RWTH Aachen University, Germany. Prof. Albrecht’s research activity lies in the broad field of Supramolecular Chemistry. In collaboration with the group of Prof. Rissanen (University of Jyväskylä, Finland), this NJC article describes a systematic approach to position anions by directing effects above an electron deficient pi-system.

 

About NJC, Prof. Albrecht commented that: “NJC gives the opportunity to publish papers which are of interest to chemists in different research areas. In our case we published a physical organic study which is highly relevant to people working in the field of supramolecular chemistry or crystal engineering.”

 

Playing with his two boys or listening to music are Markus’ favorite activities outside the lab. When asked for an alternative career path, Markus unequivocally answered: “A scientist working somewhere else.”

 

“Controlling the position of anions relative to a pentafluorophenyl group” Michael Giese, Markus Albrecht, Katharina Wiemer, Arto Valkonen and Kari Rissanen, New J. Chem., 2012, 36, 1368-1372. DOI: 10.1039/C2NJ40089H.

 

Check back next month for more profiles of NJC authors!

 

Fancy submitting an article to NJC? Then why not submit to us today or alternatively email us your suggestions.