As a joint venture between the chemistry communities of China and the UK, Materials Chemistry Frontiers strives to report the best research from China and rest of the world to international audiences.
Board members of the journal regularly select and feature their favorite MCF articles that represent research the members see as possessing exceptional novelty and a potential impact to the development of the field.
This month, Editorial Board member Zhen Li picked his choice articles from those published in Materials Chemistry Frontiers during June and July 2017.
All these articles are now FREE to read.
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Longxian Shi, Yunlong Guo, Wenping Hu and Yunqi Liu
Mater. Chem. Front., 2017, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C7QM00169J, Review Article
First published on 07 Jul 2017
Editor’s comments:
Can Wang and Zhen Li
Mater. Chem. Front., 2017, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C7QM00201G, Review Article
First published on 07 Jun 2017
Editor’s comments:
High rate Li-ion storage properties of MOF-carbonized derivatives coated on MnO nanowires
Zhen-Dong Huang, Zhen Gong, Qi Kang, Yanwu Fang, Xu-Sheng Yang, Ruiqing Liu, Xiujing Lin, Xiaomiao Feng, Yanwen Ma and Dan Wang
Mater. Chem. Front., 2017, 1, 1975-1981
DOI: 10.1039/C7QM00178A, Research Article
First published on 02 Jun 2017
Editor’s comments:
In situ polymerized hyperbranched polymer reinforced poly(acrylic acid) hydrogels
Nazila Dehbari, Javad Tavakoli, Simranjeet Singh Khatrao and Youhong Tang
Mater. Chem. Front., 2017, 1, 1995-2004
DOI: 10.1039/C7QM00028F, Research Article
First published on 06 Jun 2017
Editor’s comments:
Haobin Zhao, Zhiheng Wang, Xinyi Cai, Kunkun Liu, Zuozheng He, Xin Liu, Yong Cao and Shi-Jian Su
Mater. Chem. Front., 2017, 1, 2039-2046
DOI: 10.1039/C7QM00195A, Research Article
First published on 13 Jun 2017
Editor’s comments:
Morphology control enables thickness-insensitive efficient nonfullerene polymer solar cells
Xiaoyu Liu, Long Ye, Wenchao Zhao, Shaoqing Zhang, Sunsun Li, Gregory M. Su, Cheng Wang, Harald Ade and Jianhui Hou
Mater. Chem. Front., 2017, 1, 2057-2064
DOI: 10.1039/C7QM00182G, Research Article
First published on 22 Jun 2017
Editor’s comments:
Previous articles recommended by MCF board members are also open for all to access. Read the full collection now!
Board members of the journal regularly select and feature their favorite MCF articles that represent research the members see as possessing exceptional novelty and a potential impact to the development of the field.
Huge variety of organic semiconductive molecular materials has been reported day-by-day in these years, and the devices based on the materials are mainly of interests with efficient charge transporting properties. The nature of charge carriers themselves, however, has been seldom clarified in many cases. The magnetoresistance in a bipolar semiconductive molecular glass, discussed in the present paper by Reichert, Hagelstein, and Saragi, provides a clear picture of the charge carriers of which spins are in a variety of coupling interactions. The magnetic responses of the devices offer the multi-functional device systems responding external magnetic field, as the authors claim, and will contribute to figure out fundamentally the characters of charge carriers themselves.
Likely to the aromatic porphyrin derivatives studied widely in everywhere, anti-aromatic norcorroles will be a fundamental and important class of ‘porphyrinoids’ in their condensed phases via p-electron interaction through spaces. The direct amination reactions discovered and demonstrated in the present paper by Yoshida and Shinokubo are very simple approach to functionalize the molecular motifs with region-selectivity via C-H activation. This might be the easiest way to introduce electron donating amino groups into porphynoids, leading to the fine tuning of energy levels with pretty high chemical yields.
Mater. Chem. Front., 2017, 1, 1304-1309
Editor’s Comments:
Editor’s comments:
A potential strategy to improve the performance of organic solar cells (OSCs), ternary OSCs based on indene-C60 bisadduct (ICBA) electron acceptor and absorption-complementary electron donors, was reported by Wei and co-workers from National Center for Nanoscience and Technology, China. A high open-circuit voltage of 0.98 V is obtained. The performance of ternary OSCs is improved by 10% attributed to the optimized morphology with better crystalline electron donors and acceptor after blending solution processing small molecules. The reported studies reveal a new method for enhancing the performance of ICBA and non-fullerene based OSCs.
A very powerful approach, solvent-assisted linker exchange (SALE) in metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), was developed in the Hupp and Farha team from Northwestern University, USA. One of the major advantages of SALE is preservation of a MOF topology while introducing a new functionality. The authors demonstrated that SALE could also be applied to increase MOF stability. In particular, increase of stability of widely used UiO-66 framework was reported through incorporation of benzene-1,4-dihydroxamic acid linkers due to formation of stronger bonds. These studies reveal a new avenue in the use of post-synthetic techniques, such as SALE, to access robust metal-organic materials, which is a key component for practical application development.
Due to modularity and exceptional tunability, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) offer a number of advantages for efficient gas separation. Thus, Chen and co-workers from the University of Texas at San Antonio, USA reported the novel MOFs, which selectively adsorb CO2 over CH4 and N2, as shown by single component gas sorption and selectivity calculations. The reported studies are an important step forward for the industrial separation of CO2/CH4 and CO2/N2 gas mixtures as well as a next generation of efficient absorbents.
Editor’s Comments:
Alpha-ʟ-fucosidase (AFU) is an enzyme that belongs to the family of hydrolases and that plays a vital role in all mammalian cells at low concentrations. Aberrant levels of AFU, however, cause health problems such as fucosidosis and carcinoma. Effective detection of AFU can thus be very useful in terms of early disease diagnosis. F. Zeng, S. Wu and coworkers at South China University of Technology (Guangzhou) presented the first example of ratiometric fluorescent bioprobe for AFU assay. The bioprobe is based on the mechanism of AFU-catalyzed selective cleavage of α-ʟ-fucose group, enabling highly sensitive and selective detection of AFU in live cells. Its detection limit is as low as 0.0033 U mL-1. The researchers successfully applied this bioprobe to a hepatocellular carcinoma model of zebrafish for monitoring and spatially mapping endogenous AFU levels. This work offers an effective approach to studying AFU-associated physiological and pathological processes.
Almost all the proteinogenic amino acids are L-stereoisomers in the living systems. Is there any biological implication of this structural motif? A “yes” answer was given in a recent study by Y. Shen, Z. Li and collaborators at Qingdao University of Science and Technology (Shandong) and Institute of Chemistry of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Beijing). The researchers prepared surface-grafted poly(γ-benzyl glutamate) brushes with different secondary structures to investigate the influence of main-chain chirality on cell adhesion behaviours. They found that cells adhered and grown more densely and homogeneously on the poly(γ-benzyl L-glutamate) (PBLG)-grafted surfaces than on those grafted with its enantiomeric counterpart poly(γ-benzyl D-glutamate) (PBDG). This is possibly owing to the chirality recognition of living cells through the stereospecific interactions between the chiral molecules and the cell surface proteins. This study may help better understand cell/chirality interactions.