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Royal Society Publishing has recently published a special issue of Philosophical Transactions A entitled “Fullerenes: past, present and future, celebrating the 30th anniversary of Buckminsterfullerene“.

The discovery of C60 and the subsequent evolution of fullerene physics and chemistry can be seen as the culmination of a series of parallel research strands pursued by Harry Kroto through numerous collaborations with colleagues and co-workers.

This themed issue originates from the 2-day symposium held on 15–16 July 2015, organized by the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) and the Royal Society. The majority of the reviews and reports of original research were provided by scientists who gave presentations at the July 2015 meeting and the other contributions were produced by friends and co-workers of Harry.

This issue is free to access until the end of September:

Introduction:

Fullerenes: past, present and future, celebrating the 30th anniversary of Buckminsterfullerene
Anthony J. Stace, Paul O’Brien

Dedication:

Professor Sir Harry Kroto (1939–2016)
Dave Garner

Articles:

- Pathway to the identification of C₆₀⁺ in diffuse interstellar clouds
John P. Maier, Ewen K. Campbell

- Fullerene ion chemistry: a journey of discovery and achievement
Diethard K. Böhme

- Super-atom molecular orbital excited states of fullerenes
J. Olof Johansson, Elvira Bohl, Eleanor E. B. Campbell

- Another big discovery—metallofullerenes
Hisanori Shinohara

- Fullerene and nanotube growth: new insights using first principles and molecular dynamics
Rodolfo Cruz-Silva, Takumi Araki, Takuya Hayashi, Humberto Terrones, Mauricio Terrones, Morinobu Endo

- Unconventional high-T_c superconductivity in fullerides
Yasuhiro Takabayashi, Kosmas Prassides

- The influence hydrogen atom addition has on charge switching during motion of the metal atom in endohedral Ca@C₆₀H₄ isomers
G. Raggi, E. Besley, A. J. Stace

- Ab initio infrared vibrational modes for neutral and charged small fullerenes (C₂₀, C₂₄, C₂₆, C₂₈, C₃₀ and C₆₀)
Jean-Joseph Adjizian, Alexis Vlandas, Jeremy Rio, Jean-Christophe Charlier, Chris P. Ewels

- The Stone–Wales transformation: from fullerenes to graphite, from radiation damage to heat capacity
M. I. Heggie, G. L. Haffenden, C. D. Latham, T. Trevethan

- Two-dimensional inorganic analogues of graphene: transition metal dichalcogenides
Manoj K. Jana, C. N. R. Rao

We hope you enjoy reading this collection.

Abstract

Anion sandwich is a pincer cake: The synthesis of the first halogen bonding (XB) [3]rotaxane host system containing a four station axle is reported. Anion binding titration experiments reveal the rotaxane is selective for nitrate and operates through a dynamic pincer mechanism in which both macrocycles shuttle to the central XB anion recognition sites to form a 1:1 stoichiometric oxoanion–rotaxane sandwich complex.

[Communication]
Timothy A. Barendt, Andrew Docker, Igor Marques, Vítor Félix, Paul D. Beer
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., July 20, 2016, DOI: 10.1002/anie.201604327. Read article

Over the past two decades, there have been major developments in transition metal–catalyzed aminations of aryl halides to form anilines, a common structure found in drug agents, natural product isolates, and fine chemicals. Many of these approaches have enabled highly efficient and selective coupling through the design of specialized ligands, which facilitate reductive elimination from a destabilized metal center. We postulated that a general and complementary method for carbon–nitrogen bond formation could be developed through the destabilization of a metal amido complex via photoredox catalysis, thus providing an alternative approach to the use of structurally complex ligand systems. Here, we report the development of a distinct mechanistic paradigm for aryl amination using ligand-free nickel(II) salts, in which facile reductive elimination from the nickel metal center is induced via a photoredox-catalyzed electron-transfer event. Authors: Emily B. Corcoran, Michael T. Pirnot, Shishi Lin, Spencer D. Dreher, Daniel A. DiRocco, Ian W. Davies, Stephen L. Buchwald, David W. C. MacMillan

Article

Liquid crystals are used in many applications, such as removable adhesives, but this requires both good bonding strength, and its rapid disappearance under an external stimulus. Here, Saito and others report a dynamic liquid crystal material that loses is bonding strength under photo irradiation.

Nature Communications doi: 10.1038/ncomms12094

Authors: Shohei Saito, Shunpei Nobusue, Eri Tsuzaka, Chunxue Yuan, Chigusa Mori, Mitsuo Hara, Takahiro Seki, Cristopher Camacho, Stephan Irle, Shigehiro Yamaguchi

Article

Conversion of one-carbon feedstocks to more complex structures is vital for the production of bulk chemicals. Here, the authors report a highly selective method for the conversion of carbon monoxide to ethylene glycol by means of an oxamide intermediate.

Nature Communications doi: 10.1038/ncomms12075

Authors: Kaiwu Dong, Saravanakumar Elangovan, Rui Sang, Anke Spannenberg, Ralf Jackstell, Kathrin Junge, Yuehui Li, Matthias Beller

The trade-off between physical adsorption capacity and selectivity of porous materials is a major barrier for efficient gas separation and purification through physisorption. We report control over pore chemistry and size in metal coordination networks with hexafluorosilicate and organic linkers for the purpose of preferential binding and orderly assembly of acetylene molecules through cooperative host-guest and/or guest-guest interactions. The specific binding sites for acetylene are validated by modeling and neutron powder diffraction studies. The energies associated with these binding interactions afford high adsorption capacity (2.1 millimoles per gram at 0.025 bar) and selectivity (39.7 to 44.8) for acetylene at ambient conditions. Their efficiency for the separation of acetylene/ethylene mixtures is demonstrated by experimental breakthrough curves (0.73 millimoles per gram from a 1/99 mixture). Authors: Xili Cui, Kaijie Chen, Huabin Xing, Qiwei Yang, Rajamani Krishna, Zongbi Bao, Hui Wu, Wei Zhou, Xinglong Dong, Yu Han, Bin Li, Qilong Ren, Michael J. Zaworotko, Banglin Chen

Through molecular engineering, single diarylethenes were covalently sandwiched between graphene electrodes to form stable molecular conduction junctions. Our experimental and theoretical studies of these junctions consistently show and interpret reversible conductance photoswitching at room temperature and stochastic switching between different conductive states at low temperature at a single-molecule level. We demonstrate a fully reversible, two-mode, single-molecule electrical switch with unprecedented levels of accuracy (on/off ratio of ~100), stability (over a year), and reproducibility (46 devices with more than 100 cycles for photoswitching and ~105 to 106 cycles for stochastic switching). Authors: Chuancheng Jia, Agostino Migliore, Na Xin, Shaoyun Huang, Jinying Wang, Qi Yang, Shuopei Wang, Hongliang Chen, Duoming Wang, Boyong Feng, Zhirong Liu, Guangyu Zhang, Da-Hui Qu, He Tian, Mark A. Ratner, H. Q. Xu, Abraham Nitzan, Xuefeng Guo