Volume 3 Issue 1, January 2019

³⁹Ar is an ideal tracer for radioactive dating in the 50–1000 year range of deep ocean circulations. However, extremely low concentrations of ³⁹Ar in the ocean make the dating process long and costly. Applied quantum technologies can, however, drastically simplify ocean dating procedures.

Metal–organic frameworks with certain compositions can exist as glasses. Processable materials featuring intrinsic porosity are rare and are expected to be invaluable in chemical separations.

Ion mobility–mass spectrometry (IM-MS) is a gas-phase method for structural characterization — a tool prevalent in biology but only recently finding applications in supramolecular chemistry. This Perspective describes how IM-MS techniques give us information about the structures of molecular self-assemblies, host–guest complexes and metallosupramolecular systems.

Low-valent early transition metals are experiencing a renaissance in synthesis and catalysis, finding applications in unusual C–C bond forming reactions, oxidative group-transfer catalysis, proton-coupled electron transfer, photoredox catalysis and more.

Lewis’ shared electron-pair model was a stroke of genius, describing the structure and reactivity of molecules purely on the basis of his tremendous knowledge of empirical chemistry without any quantum chemistry. Unprecedented in simplicity, its success unfortunately concealed some misleading interpretations of the physical origin of chemical bonding.

This Perspective introduces energy decomposition analysis as a means of providing a quantum chemically derived bonding model that we can use to rationalize molecular geometries and bonding. The model serves as a bridge between the simple Lewis electron-pair bond and the complicated quantum theoretical nature of the chemical bond.