December 2018 – Chemical Science Blog

Archive for December, 2018

Andrei Yudin joins Chemical Science as an Associate Editor

20 Dec 2018

We are delighted to introduce Professor Andrei Yudin as Chemical Science Associate Editor, handling submissions in the area of organic chemistry.

Andrei is a Professor of Chemistry at the University of Toronto, where his group specialise in chemical synthesis with a focus on the preparation of novel biologically active molecules. Andrei and his group pioneered work on the preparation of amphoteric reagents, developing structurally distinct intermediates that were viewed as impossible to prepare prior to their studies. The group have been highlighted for the preparation of a library of difficult-to-prepare azridine aldehydes and α-boryl aldehydes that can be applied in the preparation of medically relevant peptidomimetics.

Andrei is the current Editor-in-Chief of the Royal Society of Chemistry journal, Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry, and runs a blog series providing regular updates on the progress within his group, found at https://amphoteros.com/.

Andrei has now joined the team at Chemical Science and looks forward to receiving submissions in the areas of organic synthesis, transition metal catalysis, peptide preparation and macrocyclisation.

Below is a selection of articles published in Chemical Science that Andrei would like to highlight:

Oxygen transfer in electrophilic epoxidation probed by ¹⁷O NMR: differentiating between oxidants and role of spectator metal oxo
Christian Ehinger, Christopher P. Gordon and Christophe Coperet
Chem. Sci., 2019, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C8SC04868A, Edge Article

A divergent synthetic pathway for pyrimidine-embedded medium-sized azacycles through an N-quaternizing strategy
Yoona Choi, Heejun Kim and Seung Bum Park
Chem. Sci., 2019, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C8SC04061C, Edge Article

We also highlight a few of Andrei’s contributions to Chemical Science from the last few years:

3-Cyanoallyl boronates are versatile building blocks in the synthesis of polysubstituted thiophenes
Wenjie Shao, Sherif J. Kaldas and Andrei K. Yudin
Chem. Sci., 2017, 8, 4431-4436
DOI: 10.1039/C7SC00831G, Edge Article

The reactivity and conformational control of cyclic tetrapeptides derived from aziridine-containing amino acids
Benjamin K. W. Chung, Christopher J. White, Conor C. G. Scully and Andrei K. Yudin
Chem. Sci., 2016, 7, 6662-6668
DOI: 10.1039/C6SC01687A, Edge Article

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Andrew Cooper – our new Editor-in-Chief of Chemical Science

18 Dec 2018

We are delighted to announce Professor Andrew Cooper as the new Editor-in-Chief of Chemical Science.

Andrew Cooper is Professor of Chemistry, Director of the Centre for Materials Discovery and Director of the Materials Innovation Factory at the University of Liverpool. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and has won several prizes and awards for his research.

Professor Cooper’s research interests lie in polymeric materials, supercritical fluids, microporous materials, hydrogen storage, metal nanoparticles, organometallics, emulsion-templated materials, and high-throughput materials methodology.

As we thank Professor Daniel Nocera for his valuable contributions to the journal during his term as Editor-in-Chief of Chemical Science over the past four years, we warmly welcome Professor Cooper as he leads the journal to continued success.

As the Royal Society of Chemistry’s flagship journal, Chemical Science publishes findings of exceptional significance from across the chemical sciences. Chemical Science is free to read, and free to publish in – with all publication charges currently waived.

Professor Cooper joins us in inviting you to submit your most exceptional research to Chemical Science today!

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Carbon Coating Promotes CO2 Reduction on Nickel Surfaces

18 Dec 2018

Reducing CO₂ into fuels such as CO or hydrocarbons is a promising strategy to reduce the net emission of greenhouse gases and mitigate climate change. The CO₂ reduction reaction, however, is an energy-costly process. Therefore, CO₂ reduction catalysts are necessary to enhance the CO₂ conversion efficiency and minimize the overall energy demand.

Researchers are developing high-performance yet inexpensive CO₂ reduction catalysts. Noble metals such as Au, Ag and Pd exhibit high CO₂-to-CO conversion efficiency, but their scarcity restricts their large-scale practicability. Metallic Fe, Co and Ni are active in reducing CO₂ and therefore, have been identified as alternatives to the noble metal catalysts.

Recently in Chem. Sci., a group of scientists led by Zhenyu Sun from Beijing University of Chemical Technology and Yousung Jung from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) pushed the CO₂-reduction activity of Ni metal to a new height. The researchers synthesized carbon-supported Ni nanocrystals via pyrolysis of Ni-based metal organic frameworks (MOFs) in argon. The resultant Ni nanoparticles had an average diameter of ~30 nm and were embedded in N-doped carbon scaffolds (Fig. 1a). Each nanoparticle was uniformly coated with a thin layer of amorphous carbon (Fig. 1b).

Figure 1. (a) The elemental mapping of the carbon-supported Ni nanoparticles. Green dots and blue regions are Ni nanoparticles and carbon matrices, respectively. (b) The scanning transmission electron microscope image showing the thin carbon coating on a Ni nanoparticle surface. (c) The CO2-to-CO conversion efficiencies at different applied potentials. Ni-NC_ATPA@C and Ni-NC_TPA@C are carbon-supported Ni nanoparticles derived from MOFs with 2-amino-terephthalic acid and terephthalic acid organic linkers, respectively. NC_ATPA@C is the Ni-free carbon powder derived from ATPA.

The CO₂-to-CO conversion efficiencies of these Ni-C nanocomposites were the highest among all the reported carbon-supported Ni nanoparticles. The best Ni catalyst achieved a maximal efficiency of ~94% at an overpotential of 0.59 V, while previously reported Ni-C catalysts typically exhibited efficiencies lower than 25%. The significantly improved conversion efficiency was associated with the thin carbon coating. This coating prevented the Ni nanoparticles from directly contacting with aqueous electrolytes, and thus minimized hydrogen evolution reaction, a side reaction that decreased the conversion efficiency.

This work highlights the instrumental role of the surface carbon layers in promoting the CO₂-reduction activity of Ni nanoparticles. The carbon-coating strategy could be extended to other low-cost transition metals, which may lead to a variety of cost-effective CO₂-reduction catalysts.

To find out more please read:

Carbon-Supported Ni Nanoparticles for Efficient CO₂ Electroreduction

Mingwen Jia, Changhyeok Choi, Tai-Sing Wu, Chen Ma, Peng Kang, Hengcong Tao, Qun Fan, Song Hong, Shizhen Liu, Yun-Liang Soo, Yousung Jung, Jieshan Qiu and Zhenyu Sun

Chem. Sci., 2018, 9, 8775-8780

About the blogger:

Tianyu Liu obtained his Ph.D. (2017) in Chemistry from University of California, Santa Cruz in the United States. He is passionate about scientific communication to introduce cutting-edge research to both the general public and scientists with diverse research expertise. He is a blog writer for Chem. Commun. and Chem. Sci. More information about him can be found at http://liutianyuresearch.weebly.com/.

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Serena DeBeer joins Chemical Science as an Associate Editor

11 Dec 2018

We are delighted to announce that Professor Serena DeBeer has joined Chemical Science as an Associate Editor.

Serena is a Professor and Director at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion in Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany. She is also an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Cornell University, an honorary faculty member at Ruhr University in Bochum, and the group leader of the PINK Beamline at the Energy Materials In‐Situ Laboratory at Helmholtz Zentrum in Berlin. She received her B.S. in Chemistry at Southwestern University in 1995 and her Ph.D. from Stanford University in 2002. From 2002-2009, she was a staff scientist at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory, before moving to her faculty position at Cornell.

Serena’s research interests lie in the development and application of advanced X-ray spectroscopic tools for understanding processes in biological, heterogeneous and homogeneous catalysis. This includes advances to X-ray spectroscopy techniques as well as applications focused on understanding electronic structural changes in catalytic processes such as N₂ reduction, CH₄ oxidation, H₂O oxidation and H₂ production.

Serena looks forward to receiving submissions in the areas of (bio)inorganic chemistry, heterogeneous and homogeneous catalysis and spectroscopy.

Below is a selection of articles published in Chemical Science which Serena would like to highlight – all free to read! We hope you enjoy them.

Excited state electron and energy relays in supramolecular dinuclear complexes revealed by ultrafast optical and X-ray transient absorption spectroscopy
Dugan Hayes, Lars Kohler, Ryan G. Hadt, Xiaoyi Zhang, Cunming Liu, Karen L. Mulfort and Lin X. Chen
Chem. Sci., 2018, 9, 860-875
DOI: 10.1039/C7SC04055E, Edge Article

Infrared spectroscopy of the nitrogenase MoFe protein under electrochemical control: potential-triggered CO binding
P. Paengnakorn, P. A. Ash, S. Shaw, K. Danyal, T. Chen, D. R. Dean, L. C. Seefeldt and K. A. Vincent
Chem. Sci., 2017, 8, 1500-1505
DOI: 10.1039/C6SC02860H, Edge Article

Metal oxidation states in biological water splitting
Vera Krewald, Marius Retegan, Nicholas Cox, Johannes Messinger, Wolfgang Lubitz, Serena DeBeer, Frank Neese and Dimitrios A. Pantazis
Chem. Sci., 2015, 6, 1676-1695
DOI: 10.1039/C4SC03720K, Edge Article

Structurally characterized terminal manganese(IV) oxo tris(alkoxide) complex
Robert L. Halbach, David Gygi, Eric D. Bloch, Bryce L. Anderson and Daniel G. Nocera
Chem. Sci., 2018, 9, 4524-4528
DOI: 10.1039/C8SC01164H, Edge Article

Magnetic circular dichroism and computational study of mononuclear and dinuclear iron(IV) complexes
Shengfa Ye, Genqiang Xue, Itana Krivokapic, Taras Petrenko, Eckhard Bill, Lawrence Que Jr and Frank Neese
Chem. Sci., 2015, 6, 2909-2921
DOI: 10.1039/C4SC03268C, Edge Article

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HOT Chemical Science articles for November

05 Dec 2018

We are happy to present a selection of our HOT articles over the past month. To see all of our HOT referee-recommended articles from 2018, please find the collection here.

As always, Chemical Science articles are free to access.

Carbon-supported Ni nanoparticles for efficient CO2 electroreduction

Mingwen Jia, Changhyeok Choi, Tai-Sing Wu, Chen Ma, Peng Kang, Hengcong Tao, Qun Fan, Song Hong, Shizhen Liu, Yun-Liang Soo, Yousung Jung, Jieshan Qiu and Zhenyu Sun

Chem. Sci., 2018, Advance Article

DOI: 10.1039/C8SC03732A, Edge Article