Browse Articles

Filter By:

  • At arguably one of the prettiest locations in England, the Nineteenth Lakeland Symposium brought together an international group of delegates from academia and industry to discuss a breadth of topics at the cutting edge of synthetic and heterocyclic organic chemistry.

    • Timothy C. Gallagher
    News & Views
  • A racemic mixture of tartaric acid forms mirror-image domains with equal propensity when adsorbed on a copper surface. When one enantiomer is present in a slight excess, however, only ordered domains comprising the major isomer are formed.

    • Christopher J. Baddeley
    News & Views
  • Converting methane into more useful and readily transportable compounds has previously required the use of metal-based oxo catalysts, but now sulfur and phosphorus are showing their mettle.

    • Robert H. Crabtree
    News & Views
  • Metal ions have been incorporated at specific pre-programmed locations into a well-defined, three-dimensional DNA structure. Applications of such cages could arise from the functionalities of the metal centres, guest encapsulation or biomimetic properties.

    • Yan Liu
    • Hao Yan
    News & Views
  • The catalytically active form of an iridium complex changes reversibly in the presence or absence of hydrogen. Such catalysts may be essential for the adoption of organic hydrogen-storage materials as an alternative to petroleum-derived fuels.

    • Philip Jessop
    News & Views
  • Iron has important roles in areas as diverse as physiological processes and industrial activities, but has traditionally been eclipsed by other transition metals in synthesis processes. Carsten Bolm looks at how iron is now also becoming an increasingly sought-after catalyst.

    • Carsten Bolm
    In Your Element
  • Crossed-beam experiments have shown that, counterintuitively, breaking the C–H bond during the F + CHD3 reaction is impeded by its vibrational excitation

    • Gavin Armstrong
    Research Highlights
  • An unusual three-coordinate cobalt complex features a hydride ligand and reacts with nitrogen

    • Neil Withers
    Research Highlights
  • A solvent-free liquid protein has been prepared and shows a thermotropic liquid-crystalline phase

    • Laura Croft
    Research Highlights
  • The photoconductivity and inverse photoconductivity of noble-metal nanoparticle films can be tuned by functionalization with alkane thiol monolayers

    • Gavin Armstrong
    Research Highlights
  • Triblock copolymer vesicles show highly reversible pH-induced volume changes

    • Laura Croft
    Research Highlights
  • A new class of perovskite materials with unusual disorder are multiferroic near room temperature

    • Neil Withers
    Research Highlights
  • Incorporating binding sites for metal ions into DNA strands that assemble into well-defined three-dimensional structures has enabled researchers to build metal-nucleic acid cages. There is potential for the geometry, pore size and chemistry of such materials to be easily tuned, which may prove useful for applications in molecular sensing and encapsulation.

    • Hua Yang
    • Christopher K. McLaughlin
    • Hanadi F. Sleiman
    Article
  • When a racemic mixture of tartaric acid is adsorbed on a Cu(110) surface, the (R,R) and (S,S) enantiomers separate to form enantiopure domains that cover equal amounts of the substrate. Repeating the experiment with just a small excess of one enantiomer, however, has a drastic effect on the surface assembly with only the majority isomer forming ordered superstructures.

    • Sam Haq
    • Ning Liu
    • Rasmita Raval
    Article
  • Building artificial chemical systems that mimic the behaviour of cells could offer new insights into biological processes. Now, researchers show that by compartmentalizing the autocatalytic formose reaction inside lipid vesicles, and using small-molecule precursors as a ‘metabolic’ fuel, they can create a system that is capable of communicating with living bacterial cells.

    • Paul M. Gardner
    • Klaus Winzer
    • Benjamin G. Davis
    Article
  • Chemical methods of achieving asymmetric protonation are classified according to reaction mechanism, with a view to developing a greater understanding of this most fundamental of asymmetric processes, and thus improving the potential for its application in synthesis.

    • Justin T. Mohr
    • Allen Y. Hong
    • Brian M. Stoltz
    Review Article
  • Spin transitions — metal ions changing from high- to low-spin states — can be triggered by a range of stimuli and have normally only been observed in octahedrally coordinated ions. Now, a four-coordinate, square-planar iron(II) compound, SrFeO2, exhibits such a spin transition, accompanied by a transition from an antiferromagnetic insulator to a ferromagnetic half-metal.

    • T. Kawakami
    • Y. Tsujimoto
    • M. Takano
    Article
  • Platinum nanoparticles are excellent catalysts, but maintaining that effectiveness at ever smaller particle sizes is crucial to make best use of the precious metal. Now, a dendrimer has been used as a template to make subnanometre clusters, with a defined number of atoms, that exhibit high catalytic activity.

    • Kimihisa Yamamoto
    • Takane Imaoka
    • Atsunori Sonoi
    Article
  • Nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide can form adducts with frustrated Lewis pairs that consist of sterically bulky phosphines and boranes

    • Anne Pichon
    Research Highlights