Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
The uptake of ammonia by a covalent–organic framework (COF) containing a high density of Lewis-acidic boron sites has been found to be significantly greater than that exhibited by other state-of-the-art porous materials. The ammonia can be removed by heating under vacuum and the structural integrity of the COF is maintained during adsorption/desorption cycles.
The synthesis of interlocked compounds such as catenanes and rotaxanes has undergone much development in recent years, but molecular knots are still relatively hard to make. It has now been shown that a linear bipyridine oligomer can fold around a single zinc-ion template to form a complex that can be cyclized to give a molecular trefoil knot.
A methodology for describing local electronic transmission through bridging molecules between metallic electrodes is presented. Its application to simple alkane, phenyl and cross-conjugated systems highlights an unexpected number of cases whereby ‘through space’, rather than ‘through bond’ terms dominate and that interference effects coincide with the reversal of ring currents.
The movement of oxygen ions through materials is important in electrolytes and separation membranes, but is rare at lower temperatures. Two different low-temperature diffusion pathways are revealed during the reduction process of CaFeO2.5 to CaFeO2. The two pathways are significantly different, resulting in anisotropy.
Silicon-based polymers have been assembled into honeycomb films that exhibit good flexibility, stability and thermal conductivity, showing great promise for industrial applications.
Replacing readily hydrolysable ester linkages with amides in a natural adjuvant has resulted in not only more stable, but significantly more active and less toxic analogues.
The financial crisis that continued to grip the world in 2009 has brought the question of who should pay for scientific research — and what it should set out to achieve — into sharper focus than ever.
Chemical reactions of fullerenes and metallofullerenes lined up inside single-walled carbon nanotubes can be monitored at the atomic scale inside an aberration-corrected transmission electron microscope.
Yttrium-based catalysts can be used to stitch together two different lactone monomers in an alternating fashion to produce polyesters with well-defined primary structures. The ability to control the sequence of building blocks in polymers with increasing levels of precision offers new opportunities for tailoring the properties of designer synthetic macromolecules.
The stereochemical lability of cycloalkylzinc reagents combined with a large difference in reactivity between epimers has been exploited to form a wide variety of interesting organic compounds with both high yields and diastereoselectivities.
Michelle Francl wonders why people almost inevitably draw scientists as men with weird hair and glasses, and why there is no such thing as a 'draw a lawyer' test.
A molecular 'walker' can be made to move up and down a molecular 'track' by alternately locking and unlocking the two different types of covalent bonds that join the two components together. By changing the conditions under which one of the bond-forming/bond-breaking processes occurs, a directional bias for walking can be achieved.
The use of conventional computers to calculate molecular properties is hindered by the exponential increase in computational cost on increasing the size of the molecules studied. Using quantum computers could be the solution and the initial steps are now being taken.
Quantum tunnelling can at times be the cause of kinetic isotope effects, and in these cases conventional wisdom has been that molecules with isotopes of larger mass will react more slowly. New calculations, however, predict that sometimes the reverse should be true.
An enzyme that is unusually tolerant of a truly broad range of substrates can catalyse aldol-type chemistry on sugars in which the various hydroxyl groups are protected. The new methodology combines some of the most important advantages of enzyme and small-molecule catalysis.
In the search for superheavy elements, element 112 was a stepping stone towards the 'islands of stability'. Sigurd Hofmann now relates the steps that led to its 'creation' and detection.
