Chemistry articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article |

    Heterogeneous composite materials, which are potentially useful for flexible electronics, are widespread in nature but synthetic examples are rare. Here, a site-specific hierarchical approach is used to fabricate composites with extreme local variations in elastic modulus and which are reversibly stretchable.

    • Rafael Libanori
    • , Randall M. Erb
    •  & André R. Studart

  • Article |

    The transition metal-catalysed reduction of nitrogen, vital for the production of fertilizer, usually requires expensive molybdenum catalysts. Here, Yuki et al.describe the iron-catalysed reduction of nitrogen under ambient conditions and propose a reaction pathway supported by DFT calculations.

    • Masahiro Yuki
    • , Hiromasa Tanaka
    •  & Yoshiaki Nishibayashi

  • Article |

    The exploitation of the properties of graphene, such as mechanical strength and electrical conductivity, in deformable macroscopic materials is desirable. Here, a combination of graphene chemistry and ice physics is used to fabricate biomimetic, ultralight and superelastic graphene cellular monoliths.

    • Ling Qiu
    • , Jeffery Z. Liu
    •  & Dan Li

  • Article |

    Intense lasers enable scientists to study the behaviour of matter under extreme pressures, but obtaining information about its atomic structure is challenging. In this work, Suggit et al. demonstrate the use of white-light X-ray diffraction to probe the structure of laser-shocked copper on nanosecond timescales.

    • Matthew J. Suggit
    • , Andrew Higginbotham
    •  & Justin S. Wark

  • Article |

    Graphene and single-walled carbon nanotubes have high electrical conductivities and large specific surface areas. Here, these properties are extended into three dimensions by producing a seamless carbon nanotube graphene hybrid material.

    • Yu Zhu
    • , Lei Li
    •  & James M. Tour

  • Article |

    Proton exchange membrane fuel cells are good potential power sources for mobile devices but require very pure H2 production at low temperatures. Yu et al. report the use of a CuZnGaOx catalyst capable of producing CO-free H2from methanol via a non-syngas direct steam-reforming route at 150–200 °C.

    • Kai Man Kerry Yu
    • , Weiyi Tong
    •  & Shik Chi Edman Tsang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Optical activity resulting from electronic transitions in chiral inorganic materials is rare. Liu et al. report the synthesis of amino acid-derived amphiphile templated chiral TiO2fibres, which exhibit an optical response to polarized light resulting from valence to conduction band electronic transitions.

    • Shaohua Liu
    • , Lu Han
    •  & Shunai Che

  • Article |

    Orthogonal switching has been achieved in supramolecular systems, in which different responses can be triggered on demand by different stimuli. Tian et al.report host–guest heteroternary complexes with both redox- and light-responsive guests in a single, supramolecular entity.

    • Feng Tian
    • , Dezhi Jiao
    •  & Oren A. Scherman

  • Article |

    Developing next generation batteries requires better understanding of the dynamics of electrochemical reactions in working electrodes. Using a transmission electron microscope, Wanget al. develop a means to track the real time flow of lithium atoms in electrodes during the discharge of a functioning electrochemical cell.

    • Feng Wang
    • , Hui-Chia Yu
    •  & Jason Graetz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Binary mixtures of molecules on the surface of nanoparticles can arrange randomly or into different domains to form Janus, patchy or striped particles. Liuet al.show that NMR can be used to determine the ligand-shell morphology of particles coated with aliphatic and aromatic ligands.

    • Xiang Liu
    • , Miao Yu
    •  & Francesco Stellacci

  • Article |

    The practical performance of lithium sulphide batteries is much less than their predicted performance because redox products dissolve over time. Su and Manthiram show that microporous carbon membranes inserted between cathode and separator localize soluble polysulphide species and improve battery cycling characteristics.

    • Yu-Sheng Su
    •  & Arumugam Manthiram

  • Article |

    Liquid crystal elastomers can perform mechanical motion triggered by external stimuli, and are light weight, flexible materials that may be integrated into micromechanical systems. Here they are used to fabricate a one-piece temperature-responsive micropump viaa microfluidic double-emulsion process.

    • Eva-Kristina Fleischmann
    • , Hsin-Ling Liang
    •  & Rudolf Zentel

  • Article |

    Bullet-proof materials made of nanostructured composites outperform conventional materials, yet little is known of their nanoscale response to high-speed impact. Using laser-propelled microscopic projectiles, Lee et al.directly visualize this process in layered nanocomposites.

    • Jae-Hwang Lee
    • , David Veysset
    •  & Edwin L. Thomas

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Granular matter is rigid when jammed, and flows under external loads. Here temperature- and force-unfolding molecular dynamics stimulations are used to demonstrate that proteins display features of jamming, characterized by a force distribution peak on folding and a slowdown of stress relaxation.

    • Prasanth P Jose
    •  & Ioan Andricioaei

  • Article |

    The spontaneous adsorption of alkanethiols is widely utilized to fabricate functional surfaces but gives limited stability and regularity. Mattiuzziet al. report a method that uses preorganized platforms (rigid tetrapodant calix[4]arenes), which allows further surface functionalization and spatial control.

    • Alice Mattiuzzi
    • , Ivan Jabin
    •  & Corinne Lagrost

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Copolymers prepared by controlled radical chain-growth polymerizations usually contain ill-defined monomer sequences. Here, successive feeds of donor and acceptor comonomers are used to control the primary structure of the synthesized copolymers with very high accuracy.

    • Mirela Zamfir
    •  & Jean-François Lutz

  • Article |

    Nanoporous zeotypes have applications as catalysts and in gas separation, but they are usually produced as moderately dense silicates and aluminosilicates with relatively low capacities for gas uptake. Here, zeotype structures are reported with very low densities and high total specific pore volumes.

    • Benjamin T.R. Littlefield
    •  & Mark T. Weller

  • Article |

    Protein encapsulation in molecular cages has the potential to alter protein function and aid crystallization. Here, ubiquitin is encapsulated within a giant coordination cage; the protein is attached to a bidentate ligand, and the cage self-assembles upon addition of capping ligands and Pd(II) ions.

    • Daishi Fujita
    • , Kosuke Suzuki
    •  & Makoto Fujita

  • Article |

    Well-defined, monodisperse colloids of semiconducting polymers are required as new photonic and optoelectronic materials. Here, a Suzuki–Miyaura dispersion polymerization is used to produce monodisperse sub-micrometer particles of a range of semiconducting polymers.

    • Alexander J.C. Kuehne
    • , Malte C. Gather
    •  & Joris Sprakel

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The physical properties of organic metals have generally been described in terms of a highly correlated Luttinger liquid. Using angle-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy, Kisset al. measure the Fermi surface of (BEDT-TTF)3Br(pBIB), and find that, in contrast to other systems, it can be described as a Fermi liquid.

    • T. Kiss
    • , A. Chainani
    •  & S. Shin

  • Article |

    The computational prediction of complex protein architectures has been used to design globular proteins, but the folding of collagen triple helices is difficult to predict. Here, a sequence-based scoring function for triple helix is developed and used to select sequences likely to self-assemble with high stability.

    • Jorge A. Fallas
    •  & Jeffrey D. Hartgerink

  • Article |

    The charge-transfer characteristics of conjugated molecules are important in determining their electronic properties. Using resonant photoemission spectroscopy, Batraet al. quantify the through-space charge transfer in two model conjugated systems with femtosecond resolution.

    • Arunabh Batra
    • , Gregor Kladnik
    •  & Latha Venkataraman

  • Article |

    Ultrathin inorganic materials hold promise for a variety of applications, including flexible electronics. This work presents a fabrication method that permits the synthesis of large and flexible freestanding layers of zinc selenide that display a high-photocurrent density.

    • Yongfu Sun
    • , Zhihu Sun
    •  & Yi Xie

  • Article |

    Methanol is an important industrial chemical and liquid fuel, and is usually produced by the syn-gas route from natural gas. Wuet al. develop a new catalytic process that directly converts ethylene glycol, derived from biomass or fossil fuels, to methanol in hydrogen using a Pd/Fe2O3co-precipitated catalyst.

    • Cheng-Tar Wu
    • , Kai Man Kerry Yu
    •  & Shik Chi Edman Tsang

  • Article |

    Membrane-based technologies to separate oil–water mixtures are energy-intensive, suffer from fouling or cannot separate a wide range of mixtures. Now, a new membrane is reported that is superhydrophilic and superoleophobic, and can separate a range of oil–water mixtures with high efficiency, without an external energy source.

    • Arun K. Kota
    • , Gibum Kwon
    •  & Anish Tuteja

  • Article |

    Chirality can be induced both by physical forces and by chemical induction processes. Here, a self-assembled system is reported in which chiral selection is controlled by the combined action of a chiral dopant and vortical stirring, which can act either constructively or destructively.

    • Núria Petit-Garrido
    • , Josep Claret
    •  & Francesc Sagués

  • Article |

    Nacre is an organic–inorganic composite biomaterial, which consists of an ordered multilayer structure of crystalline calcium carbonate platelets separated by porous organic layers. Finnemoreet al. present a route to artificial nacre which mimics the natural layer-by-layer biosynthesis.

    • Alexander Finnemore
    • , Pedro Cunha
    •  & Ullrich Steiner

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Patchy colloids are colloidal particles with chemically or physically patterned surfaces that result in complex interactions arising between them. By means of numerical simulations, Romano and Sciortino show that suitably tailored patches can induce the crystallization of patchy colloids into specific crystal structures.

    • Flavio Romano
    •  & Francesco Sciortino

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Crystallization of noble metal atoms usually leads to the thermodynamically stable face-centred cubic phase. Sunet al. show that internal strain in silver nanoparticles leads to lattice distortion and a stable body-centred tetragonal phase.

    • Yugang Sun
    • , Yang Ren
    •  & Dean J. Miller

  • Article |

    Molecular systems with rigid macrocyclic backbones self-assemble into synthetic nanopores that mimic the mass-transport characteristics of biological channels. Zhouet al. produce self-assembling hydrophobic nanopores that mediate highly selective transmembrane ion transport and highly efficient transmembrane water permeability.

    • Xibin Zhou
    • , Guande Liu
    •  & Bing Gong

  • Article |

    The crystallization of a racemate on a surface can lead to crystals with a unit cell containing both enantiomers, or to the separation of enantiomers into crystals of single-handedness. This study shows that manganese co-absorbed with a quinone derivative leads to achiral islands, while co-absorption with caesium gives chiral islands.

    • Nasiba Abdurakhmanova
    • , Andrea Floris
    •  & Klaus Kern

  • Article |

    Nitrogen-doped fullerenes and carbon nanotubes have been produced, but the synthesis of nitrogen-doped buckybowls, is an unsolved challenge. Tanet al. report an enantioselective synthesis of triazasumanene, and show that nitrogen doping leads to deeper bowl structures than in all-carbon buckybowls.

    • Qitao Tan
    • , Shuhei Higashibayashi
    •  & Hidehiro Sakurai

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding hydrogen diffusion in metals is a challenge because of limited access to spatial evolution of the concentration profiles. Using time- and spatially resolved optical measurements, Palssonet al. determine the diffusion rate of hydrogen by directly monitoring its transit through a vanadium thin film.

    • Gunnar K. Pálsson
    • , Andreas Bliersbach
    •  & Björgvin Hjörvarsson

  • Article |

    Geometrically frustrated spin systems are a class of statistical mechanical models that have received widespread attention, especially in condensed matter physics. This study experimentally demonstrates a quantum information processor that can simulate the behaviour of such frustrated spin system.

    • Jingfu Zhang
    • , Man-Hong Yung
    •  & Jonathan Baugh

  • Article |

    Thed orbitals of transition metal compounds influence their crystallographic and physical properties. This study reports a unique structural transition in single crystals of the S=1/2 kagomé antiferromagnet, volborthite, whereby an unpaired electron 'switches' from one dorbital to another upon cooling.

    • Hiroyuki Yoshida
    • , Jun-ichi Yamaura
    •  & Zenji Hiroi

  • Article |

    σ-Complexes of transition metals are key intermediates in metal-mediated bond activation, but have traditionally been isolable only when chelating or when one of the participating atoms is hydrogen. Here, a complex is isolated with an unsupported borirene ligand bound not through the unsaturated C=C bond, but exclusively via a B–C single bond.

    • Holger Braunschweig
    • , Peter Brenner
    •  & Alfredo Vargas

  • Article |

    The formation mechanisms of fullerenes remain unclear. This study shows that fullerenes self-assemble through a closed network growth mechanism in which atomic carbon and C2are incorporated into the growing closed cages.

    • Paul W. Dunk
    • , Nathan K. Kaiser
    •  & Harold W. Kroto

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