Chemical synthesis articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article |

    Efficient and pathogen-specific antifungal agents are required to mitigate drug resistance problems. Here the authors present a series of cationic small molecules, which are easy to isolate and characterize, and which can self-assemble to give polymer-like antifungal activity and specificity.

    • Kazuki Fukushima
    • , Shaoqiong Liu
    •  & James L. Hedrick

  • Article |

    Biomineralization processes have inspired the design of synthetic silica structures in vitro. Here, the authors use a living diatom to fabricate organo-silica constructs and are able to incorporate thiol moieties into the diatom frustule without the loss of nano-scale architectural features.

    • Yvonne Lang
    • , Francisco del Monte
    •  & Abhay Pandit

  • Article |

    Curved π-conjugated compounds, such as the fullerenes, have a variety of practical uses in addition to being structurally striking. Here, the authors demonstrate metal-mediated assembly and subsequent reductive elimination as an elegant synthetic route to a fully conjugated ball-like molecule.

    • Eiichi Kayahara
    • , Takahiro Iwamoto
    •  & Shigeru Yamago

  • Article |

    Nanoscale copper catalysts are useful for the selective hydrogenation of carbon–oxygen bonds, although they may be deactivated under harsh conditions. Here the authors report the enhanced activity and stability of core-sheath copper-phyllosilicate nanoreactors due to electronic and morphological effects.

    • Hairong Yue
    • , Yujun Zhao
    •  & Jinlong Gong

  • Article |

    Since the isolation of graphene, there has been extensive interest in other two-dimensional structures including metallic nanosheets. Here, the authors report the use of ladder polysilane ligands for the synthesis of palladium clusters containing eleven metal ions, made up of two heptametallic nanosheets.

    • Yusuke Sunada
    • , Ryohei Haige
    •  & Hideo Nagashima

  • Article |

    Acetylenes can be covalently linked by oxidative coupling reactions. Zhanget al. report terminal alkyne Csp-H bond activation and concomitant homo-coupling on a silver surface, yielding polymeric networks with a conjugated backbone.

    • Yi-Qi Zhang
    • , Nenad Kepčija
    •  & Johannes V. Barth

  • Article |

    Graphene oxide has been proposed as an alternative to precious metals for the catalysis of aerobic oxidative reactions; however, high catalyst loadings are needed. Here a simple base and acid treatment is shown to enhance its catalytic activity for the oxidative coupling of amines under ambient conditions.

    • Chenliang Su
    • , Muge Acik
    •  & Kian Ping Loh

  • 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 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 |

    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
    | 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 |

    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 |

    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 |

    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 |

    Flow lithography is used to synthesize microparticles but relies on polydimethylsiloxane microchannels for oxygen to permeate and inhibit polymerization near channel interfaces. Now, non-polydimethylsiloxane devices have been developed, which allow oxygen-free lithography, increasing the capabilities of flow lithography.

    • Ki Wan Bong
    • , Jingjing Xu
    •  & Patrick S. Doyle

  • Article |

    There has been recent progress in the synthesis of complex intertwined supramolecular topologies. In this study, Liet al.report the self-assembly of an intertwined structure based on a universal 3-ravel.

    • Feng Li
    • , Jack K. Clegg
    •  & George V. Meehan

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