Cyclocene formed by bending metallocene
Japan’s Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, in collaboration with scientists from Germany and Russia, has made a new type of super-laminated complex called cycloene by bending 18 metallocene units into a nanoscale ring. They made these by sandwiched metals such as strontium, samarium or europium between layers of cyclooctaenes, where the large triisopropylsilane substituents forced the metallocene to bend into rings when stacked.
Metallocene is an organometallic compound known for its versatility and special “sandwich” structure. Scientists won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1973 for pioneering research into the chemistry of organometallic compounds.
The results were published in the journal Nature in August. The team notes that the birth of this ring-shaped “sandwich” compound opens the door to further innovative functional organomemetal materials that could be widely used in medicine and new energy.
A carbene that breaks the eight-electron rule
According to the so-called eight-electron rule, carbon usually has eight valence electrons, but scientists have created a new compound: crystalline carbene oxide, whose carbon atom has only four valence electrons. The findings are published in the September 20 issue of the journal Nature.
In the study, Guy Bertrand’s team at the University of California, San Diego, created a carbene with a large substituent, then oxidized it, and then removed an oxide anion, leaving a carbene without non-bonded electrons. Carbenes are now a powerful tool in chemistry and have a wide range of applications in materials and medical science.
Creation of a covalent organic framework for hydroxy hydrocarbons
A team led by University of California, Berkeley professor Omar Yaghi has created a new type of covalent organic framework using molecules that interlock like fence chains. Each of these subunits is a tricyclic polyhedron network formed around a condensation precursor of copper ions. Removing the copper template ions allows the polyhedra to move without separating, making the resulting material soft and flexible, which can be used to make filtration membranes and flexible robots, for example.
The results were published in the January issue of the journal Nature Synthesis.
Stable chiral oxonium ions
Carbon usually comes to mind when it comes to chirality, but other atoms can also form chiral centers.
A joint research team from the University of Oxford and Colorado State University in the United States published a paper in the journal Nature in March, saying that they have synthesized a stable form of oxonium ion. One of the oxygen atoms is connected to the other three atoms, and the oxygen atom is the only chiral center. The experimental results show that the compound is the only compound with stable configuration and the only chiral center of oxygen atom, which fills the gap in the field of stereochemistry of oxygen atom and is a fundamental breakthrough in the field of molecular chirality.
These results will broaden scientists’ understanding of oxonium ions and open up new avenues for their future use in organic synthesis. Due to the importance of chirality in catalysis, medicine, and materials, future researchers will continue to explore the properties of chiral compounds containing oxygen atoms.
Safely bonded solid double beryllium compounds
Beryllium is a strong, lightweight, alkaline rare earth metal used in everything from telecommunications equipment to computers and mobile phones. It is also mixed with other metals and made into alloys that are used to make gyroscopes and electrical contacts, among other things.
Scientists thought that if they could combine two beryllium atoms with each other, the resulting compound would be useful. In a new study, chemists at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom have for the first time managed to get two beryllium atoms to safely bond together at room temperature, creating double berylliene, the first solid compound containing beryllium-beryllium bonds. The study was published in the June issue of the journal Science.
The team noted that one of the reasons why the two beryllium atoms could not be successfully combined before was its toxicity. But they found that they could synthesize it safely by following certain rules, and mathematical models showed that the resulting compounds were stable.
A molecular motor driven by electricity
Most molecular motors today are powered by chemical fuels or optical drives, but a joint research team from Northwestern University, the California Institute of Technology, and the University of Maine spent four years designing and synthesizing an electric molecular motor based on methylene. In solution, the two smaller rings can be electrically driven along the larger ring one-way rotation movement, the whole process does not produce waste.
The team notes that using electricity as a power source could make molecular motors easier to integrate into other technologies. The paper was published in January in the journal Nature.
The researchers say they have taken molecular nanotechnology to a new level, using electrons to efficiently drive molecular motors, just like electric motors in the macroscopic world. While this field of chemistry is still in its infancy, these tiny motors are expected to bring great changes to the field of medicine in the future.
About us
Changzhou Zhichao Medical Technology Co., LTD., founded in September 2011, is headquartered in Changzhou Hang Seng Science and Technology Industrial Park. Today, the company’s R&D center is engaged in the process research and development, production, optimization, custom synthesis and technology transfer of API or pharmaceutical intermediates, plant extracts, compounds from laboratory scale to commercial scaleup production, to meet the growing requirements of customers.
Zhichao Chemical attaches great importance to research and development and technology investment, and has established long-term strategic cooperation with domestic and foreign science academies, and has a branch in India. The team has developed and cooperated with related preparation projects, and difficult, small market volume, high value-added products, and in strict accordance with the international GMP standard management, products are exported to Europe, America, India, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and South America and other markets. At the same time, the company pays attention to the protection of intellectual property rights, constantly invents and innovates research and development of production processes, circumvent patent and intellectual property problems in the regulatory market, perfect impurity research, and provide customers with a full set of CMC or DMF registration documents.
