A great question p179
doi:10.1038/nchem.989
Who is the greatest chemist of all time?
Subject term: General chemistry
Editorial
Commentary
How to measure the impact of chemistry on the small screen pp180 - 182
Brady Haran & Martyn Poliakoff
doi:10.1038/nchem.990
Scientists worldwide are urged to communicate their research to the public, but what is the best way to judge the effectiveness of their efforts? Using our YouTube chemistry channel as an example, we highlight the unexpected difficulty of measuring the 'impact' of such outreach activities.
Subject term: General chemistry
Thesis
Blogging on the sidelines pp183 - 184
Michelle Francl
doi:10.1038/nchem.991
Bloggers shouldn't be relegated to the sidelines of the scientific literature, argues Michelle Francl.
Subject term: General chemistry
Books and Arts
Looking back, looking forward p185
Mark Kurz reviews Much ado about (practically) nothing: A history of the noble gases by David E. Fisher
doi:10.1038/nchem.992
Research Highlights
News and Views
Dye-sensitized solar cells: Out with both baby and bathwater pp188 - 189
C. Michael Elliott
doi:10.1038/nchem.986
After two decades of research, the efficiency of dye-sensitized solar cells seems to have reached a plateau. Now, changing both electrolyte and dye opens up new opportunities that offer the hope that the efficiency ceiling can be broken.
Subject terms: Electrochemistry | Polymer chemistry
See also: Article by Daeneke et al.
Switchable materials: A new spin on bistability pp189 - 191
Robin G. Hicks
doi:10.1038/nchem.997
Many different kinds of switchable molecules and materials are based on transition metal ions, but similar properties are also possible in organic materials. Now, two separate studies reveal new insights into the ability of organic radicals to associate reversibly and cooperatively in the solid state, and in so doing create bistable, hysteretic materials.
Subject terms: Materials chemistry | Physical chemistry
Electrochemical imaging: Waves in microscopy pp191 - 192
Lane A. Baker & Chiao-Chen Chen
doi:10.1038/nchem.983
Advances in transduction of electrochemical activity through surface plasmon resonance afford new opportunities for spatially and temporally resolved studies of interfaces.
Subject terms: Analytical chemistry | Electrochemistry | Materials chemistry | Surface chemistry
See also: Article by Wang et al.
Hydrogen bonding: Attractive arrays pp193 - 194
Andrew J. Wilson
doi:10.1038/nchem.996
Two readily accessible synthetic building blocks are shown to form a quadruply hydrogen-bonded heterodimer that exhibits exceptional stability and offers new opportunities for the construction of supramolecular assemblies and polymers.
Subject terms: Organic chemistry | Supramolecular chemistry
See also: Article by Blight et al.
Polymer folding: ABC of molecular origami pp194 - 196
Sébastien Perrier
doi:10.1038/nchem.995
Arranging polymers into well-defined shapes endows them with specific properties; but although it is routinely achieved in nature, accurate origami has proved challenging with synthetic polymers. A surprisingly simple folding strategy has now been described.
Subject term: Polymer chemistry
See also: Article by Schmidt et al.
Perspective
Synthetic organic spin chemistry for structurally well-defined open-shell graphene fragments pp197 - 204
Yasushi Morita, Shuichi Suzuki, Kazunobu Sato & Takeji Takui
doi:10.1038/nchem.985
Phenalenyl — a triangular neutral radical consisting of three adjacent benzene rings — and π-conjugated derivatives based on the same motif, can be viewed as 'open-shell graphene fragments'. This Perspective discusses their electronic-spin structures, the properties that arise from their unpaired electrons, and highlights their potential applications for molecular spin devices.
Abstract | Full Text | PDF (834 KB) | Supplementary information
Subject terms: Materials chemistry | Organic chemistry | Physical chemistry
Articles
Activating efficient phosphorescence from purely organic materials by crystal design pp207 - 212
Onas Bolton, Kangwon Lee, Hyong-Jun Kim, Kevin Y. Lin & Jinsang Kim
doi:10.1038/nchem.984
Purely organic materials are usually considered non-phosphorescent. Here, a crystal design that relies on the formation of halogen bonds is used to combine the heavy-atom effect with the triplet-state emission from aromatic carbonyls to produce organic crystals with bright phosphorescence of the type formerly observed only from inorganic and organometallic materials.
Abstract | Full Text | PDF (1,176 KB) | Supplementary information | Chemical compounds
Subject terms: Materials chemistry | Photochemistry
High-efficiency dye-sensitized solar cells with ferrocene-based electrolytes pp213 - 217
Torben Daeneke, Tae-Hyuk Kwon, Andrew B. Holmes, Noel W. Duffy, Udo Bach & Leone Spiccia
doi:10.1038/nchem.966
Dye-sensitized solar cells combining electrolytes based on the ferrocene/ferrocenium redox couple with a metal-free organic donor–acceptor sensitizer are reported to achieve a record 7.5% energy conversion efficiency, revealing the great potential of ferrocene-based electrolytes for future dye-sensitized solar cell applications.
Abstract | Full Text | PDF (311 KB) | Supplementary information
Subject terms: Electrochemistry | Polymer chemistry
See also: News and Views by Elliott
Diverting non-haem iron catalysed aliphatic C–H hydroxylations towards desaturations pp218 - 224
Marinus A. Bigi, Sean A. Reed & M. Christina White
doi:10.1038/nchem.967
Non-haem iron catalyst [Fe(PDP)] promotes mixed oxygenase/desaturase activity from unactivated, aliphatic C–H bonds. This novel reactivity is substrate dependent, relying on the presence of a carboxylic acid, and proceeds via a short-lived carbon-centred radical. Direct evidence for this intermediate is provided through rearrangement of a novel taxane-based radical probe.
Abstract | Full Text | PDF (414 KB) | Supplementary information | Chemical compounds
Subject terms: Catalysis | Organic chemistry | Synthesis
Multiphoton photoresists giving nanoscale resolution that is inversely dependent on exposure time pp225 - 229
Michael P. Stocker, Linjie Li, Rafael R. Gattass & John T. Fourkas
doi:10.1038/nchem.965
A broad new class of commercially available multiphoton photoinitiators is identified, the properties of which result in the inverse scaling of photolithographic feature size with exposure time, rather than the usual proportional scaling. On combination with a conventional initiator, photoresists can be created for which the feature size is independent of exposure.
Abstract | Full Text | PDF (1,899 KB) | Supplementary information | Chemical compounds
Subject terms: Photochemistry | Nanotechnology | Physical chemistry
DNA charge transport over 34 nm pp230 - 235
Jason D. Slinker, Natalie B. Muren, Sara E. Renfrew & Jacqueline K. Barton
doi:10.1038/nchem.982
The potential for using molecules as wires in nanoscale electronics is somewhat tempered by the challenges in making long and uniform structures. Now, it has been shown that DNA — which is easily synthesized to precise lengths — can conduct charge over 34 nm on multiplexed gold electrodes, a distance that surpasses most reports of molecular wires.
Abstract | Full Text | PDF (628 KB) | Supplementary information
Subject terms: Biochemistry | Electrochemistry | Nanotechnology
Controlled folding of synthetic polymer chains through the formation of positionable covalent bridges pp236 - 240
Bernhard V. K. J. Schmidt, Nina Fechler, Jana Falkenhagen & Jean-François Lutz
doi:10.1038/nchem.964
Synthetic polymers are typically difficult to fold into particular origamis because the monomers can usually not be precisely organized along their backbones. Reactive alkyne groups have now been placed at specific locations in linear polystyrene chains, enabling those to be folded into predetermined shapes through intramolecular covalent bonding.
Abstract | Full Text | PDF (406 KB) | Supplementary information | Chemical compounds
Subject term: Polymer chemistry
See also: News and Views by Perrier
Palladium-mediated intracellular chemistry pp241 - 245
Rahimi M. Yusop, Asier Unciti-Broceta, Emma M. V. Johansson, Rosario M. Sánchez-Martín & Mark Bradley
doi:10.1038/nchem.981
Palladium nanoparticles trapped within polystyrene beads can enter cells and mediate a variety of Pd0-catalysed reactions, including allylcarbamate cleavage and Suzuki–Miyaura cross-coupling. The methodology presented provides the basis for the customization of heterogeneous unnatural catalysts as tools for carrying out artificial chemistries within cells.
Abstract | Full Text | PDF (1,630 KB) | Supplementary information | Chemical compounds
Subject terms: Chemical biology | Synthesis
An AAAA–DDDD quadruple hydrogen-bond array pp246 - 250
Barry A. Blight, Christopher A. Hunter, David A. Leigh, Hamish McNab & Patrick I. T. Thomson
doi:10.1038/nchem.987
The stability of multiply hydrogen-bonded complexes can be influenced significantly by secondary electrostatic interactions between the pairs of atoms in adjacent hydrogen bonds. Now, a quadruple hydrogen-bonding array in which all of the donors are located in one component and all of the acceptors in the other has been shown to form complexes that are exceptionally stable.
Abstract | Full Text | PDF (468 KB) | Supplementary information | Chemical compounds
Subject terms: Organic chemistry | Supramolecular chemistry
See also: News and Views by Wilson
Single cells and intracellular processes studied by a plasmonic-based electrochemical impedance microscopy pp251 - 257
Wei Wang, Kyle Foley, Xiaonan Shan, Shaopeng Wang, Seron Eaton, Vinay J. Nagaraj, Peter Wiktor, Urmez Patel & Nongjian Tao
doi:10.1038/nchem.961
Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy is a useful tool for analysing biological substances, but it remains difficult to determine local details rather than average information over an electrode surface. Now, an electrochemical impedance microscope based on plasmonics has enabled the spatial and temporal study of cellular structures and processes, with submicrometre and millisecond resolutions.
Abstract | Full Text | PDF (4,025 KB) | Supplementary information
Subject terms: Analytical chemistry | Electrochemistry | Surface chemistry
See also: News and Views by Baker & Chen
Spatial and temporal control of the alkyne–azide cycloaddition by photoinitiated Cu(II) reduction pp258 - 261
Brian J. Adzima, Youhua Tao, Christopher J. Kloxin, Cole A. DeForest, Kristi S. Anseth & Christopher N. Bowman
doi:10.1038/nchem.980
The copper(I)-catalysed azide–alkyne cycloaddition is arguably the most prolific and powerful example of the click reaction paradigm. Here, photochemical reduction of Cu(II) allows spatial and temporal control over the reaction for small-molecule synthesis, patterning of hydrogel formation and the in situ labelling of gels, with features as small as 25 micrometres being produced.
Abstract | Full Text | PDF (1,781 KB) | Supplementary information | Chemical compounds
Subject terms: Materials chemistry | Polymer chemistry
In Your Element
Tracing iodine p260
Pierangelo Metrangolo & Giuseppe Resnati
doi:10.1038/nchem.998
Pierangelo Metrangolo and Giuseppe Resnati celebrate the bicentenary of the discovery of iodine — a good time to also bring to its conclusion an international project that aims to define and categorize halogen bonding.