Reversible Single‐Crystal‐to‐Single‐Crystal Photochemical Formation and Thermal Cleavage of a Cyclobutane Ring

A [2+2] cycloaddition reaction has been observed in a number of solids. The cyclobutane ring in a photodimerized material can be cleaved into olefins by UV light and heat. The high thermal stability of the metal–organic salt K₂SDC (H₂SDC=4,4’‐stilbenedicarboxylic acid) has been successfully utilized to investigate the reversible cleavage of a cyclobutane ring. The two polymorphs of K₂SDC undergo reversible cyclobutane formation by UV light and cleavage by heat in cycles. Of these, one polymorph retains its single‐crystal nature during the reversible processes. Polymorphs are known to show different physical properties and chemical reactivities. This work reveals that the retention of single‐crystal nature is strongly associated with the packing of molecules, which is controlled by kinetics and thermodynamics. The photoemissive nature of the products makes this as a promising material for photoswitches and optical data storage devices.     

Three Polymorphic CdII Coordination Polymers Obtained from the Solution and Mechanochemical Reactions of 3‐Cyanopentane‐2,4‐dione with CdII Acetate

We previously reported that monomeric and polymeric metal complexes are obtained from solution and mechanochemical reactions of 3‐cyano‐pentane‐2,4‐dione (CNacacH) with 3d metal acetates (M=Mn^II, Fe^II, Co^II, Ni^II, Cu^II, and Zn^II). A common feature found in all complexes was that their structural base is trans‐[M(CNacac)₂]. Here, we report that the reactions of CNacacH with Cd^II acetate in the solution and solid states afford different coordination polymers composed of trans‐[Cd(CNacac)₂] and cis‐[Cd(CNacac)₂] units, respectively. From a methanol solution containing CNacacH (L) and Cd(OAc)₂ ? 2 H₂O (M), a coordination polymer ( Cd‐1 ) in which trans‐[Cd(CNacac)₂] units are three‐dimensionally linked was obtained. In contrast, two different coordination polymers, Cd‐2 and Cd‐3 , were obtained from mechanochemical reactions of CNacacH with Cd(OAc)₂ ? 2 H₂O at M/L ratios of 1:1 and 1:2, respectively. In Cd‐2 , cis‐[Cd(CNacac)₂] units are two‐dimensionally linked, whereas the units are linked three‐dimensionally in Cd‐3 . Furthermore, Cd‐1 and Cd‐2 converted to Cd‐3 by applying an annealing treatment and grinding with a small amount of liquid, respectively, in spite of the polymeric structures. These phenomena, 1) different structures are formed from solution and mechanochemical reactions, 2) two polymorphs are formed depending on the M/L ratio, and 3) structural transformation of resulting polymeric structures, indicate the usability of mechanochemical method in the syntheses of coordination polymers as well as the peculiar structural flexibility of cadmium‐CNacac polymers.     

Ionic‐Liquid‐Assisted Formation of Silver Nanowires

Down to the wire : A simple and effective method to synthesize silver nanowires through an ionic‐liquid‐assisted polyol process is developed (see scheme; scale bar=5 nm). The ionic liquids are tuned to provide the anisotropic growth of silver nanoparticles into nanowires.

     

Mechanophores with a Reversible Radical System and Freezing‐Induced Mechanochemistry in Polymer Solutions and Gels

Visualization and quantitative evaluation of covalent bond scission in polymeric materials are highly important for understanding failure, fatigue, and deterioration mechanisms and improving the lifetime, durability, toughness, and reliability of the materials. The diarylbibenzofuranone‐based mechanophore radical system enabled, through electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy, in situ quantitative evaluation of scission of the mechanophores and estimation of mechanical energy induced along polymer chains by external forces. The coagulation of polymer solutions by freezing probably generated force but did not cleave the mechanophores. On the other hand, cross‐linking led to efficient propagation of the force of more than 80 kJ mol^?1 to some mechanophores, resulting their cleavage and generation of colored stable radicals. This mechanoprobe concept has the potential to elucidate other debated issues in the polymer field as well.     

Polymer‐Based Surfaces Designed to Reduce Biofilm Formation: From Antimicrobial Polymers to Strategies for Long‐Term Applications

Contact‐active antimicrobial polymer surfaces bear cationic charges and kill or deactivate bacteria by interaction with the negatively charged parts of their cell envelope (lipopolysaccharides, peptidoglycan, and membrane lipids). The exact mechanism of this interaction is still under debate. While cationic antimicrobial polymer surfaces can be very useful for short‐term applications, they lose their activity once they are contaminated by a sufficiently thick layer of adhering biomolecules or bacterial cell debris. This layer shields incoming bacteria from the antimicrobially active cationic surface moieties. Besides discussing antimicrobial surfaces, this feature article focuses on recent strategies that were developed to overcome the contamination problem. This includes bifunctional materials with simultaneously presented antimicrobial and protein‐repellent moieties; polymer surfaces that can be switched from an antimicrobial, cell‐attractive to a cell‐repellent state; polymer surfaces that can be regenerated by enzyme action; degradable antimicrobial polymers; and antimicrobial polymer surfaces with removable top layers.     

Coordination Polymer Flexibility Leads to Polymorphism and Enables a Crystalline Solid–Vapour Reaction: A Multi‐technique Mechanistic Study

Despite an absence of conventional porosity, the 1D coordination polymer [Ag₄(O₂C(CF₂)₂CF₃)₄(TMP)₃] ( 1 ; TMP=tetramethylpyrazine) can absorb small alcohols from the vapour phase, which insert into Ag?O bonds to yield coordination polymers [Ag₄(O₂C(CF₂)₂CF₃)₄(TMP)₃(ROH)₂] ( 1‐ROH ; R=Me, Et, iPr). The reactions are reversible single‐crystal‐to‐single‐crystal transformations. Vapour‐solid equilibria have been examined by gas‐phase IR spectroscopy (K=5.68(9)×10^?5 (MeOH), 9.5(3)×10^?6 (EtOH), 6.14(5)×10^?5 (iPrOH) at 295 K, 1 bar). Thermal analyses (TGA, DSC) have enabled quantitative comparison of two‐step reactions 1‐ROH → 1 → 2 , in which 2 is the 2D coordination polymer [Ag₄(O₂C(CF₂)₂CF₃)₄(TMP)₂] formed by loss of TMP ligands exclusively from singly‐bridging sites. Four polymorphic forms of 1 ( 1‐A^LT , 1‐A^HT , 1‐B^LT and 1‐B^HT ; HT=high temperature, LT=low temperature) have been identified crystallographically. In situ powder X‐ray diffraction (PXRD) studies of the 1‐ROH → 1 → 2 transformations indicate the role of the HT polymorphs in these reactions. The structural relationship between polymorphs, involving changes in conformation of perfluoroalkyl chains and a change in orientation of entire polymers (A versus B forms), suggests a mechanism for the observed reactions and a pathway for guest transport within the fluorous layers. Consistent with this pathway, optical microscopy and AFM studies on single crystals of 1‐MeOH / 1‐A^HT show that cracks parallel to the layers of interdigitated perfluoroalkyl chains develop during the MeOH release/uptake process.     

Click Mechanochemistry: Quantitative Synthesis of “Ready to Use” Chiral Organocatalysts by Efficient Two‐Fold Thiourea Coupling to Vicinal Diamines

Mechanochemical methods of neat grinding and liquid‐assisted grinding have been applied to the synthesis of mono‐ and bis(thiourea)s by using the click coupling of aromatic and aliphatic diamines with aromatic isothiocyanates. The ability to modify the reaction conditions allowed the optimization of each reaction, leading to the quantitative formation of chiral bis(thiourea)s with known uses as organocatalysts or anion sensors. Quantitative reaction yields, combined with the fact that mechanochemical reaction conditions avoid the use of bulk solvents, enabled solution‐based purification methods (such as chromatography or recrystallization) to be completely avoided. Importantly, by using selected model reactions, we also show that the described mechanochemical reaction procedures can be readily scaled up to at least the one‐gram scale. In that way, mechanochemical synthesis provides a facile method to fully transform valuable enantiomerically pure reagents into useful products that can immediately be applied in their designed purpose. This was demonstrated by using some of the mechanochemically prepared reagents as organocatalysts in a model Morita–Baylis–Hillman reaction and as cyanide ion sensors in organic solvents. The use of electronically and sterically hindered ortho‐phenylenediamine revealed that mechanochemical reaction conditions can be readily optimized to form either the 1:1 or the 1:2 click‐coupling product, demonstrating that reaction stoichiometry can be more efficiently controlled under these conditions than in solution‐based syntheses. In this way, it was shown that excellent stoichiometric control by mechanochemistry, previously established for mechanochemical syntheses of cocrystals and coordination polymers, can also be achieved in the context of covalent‐bond formation.     

Effects of Monomer Functionality on Switchable Holographic Gratings Formed in Polymer‐Dispersed Liquid‐Crystal Cells

Switching characteristics: The 633 nm wavelength of an He–Ne laser is used to fabricate holographic transmission gratings in polymer‐dispersed liquid‐crystal cells. The microstructure and diffraction efficiency (η) both improve with increasing functionality (see figure). For functionalities of 2.5 or more, η approaches 34 % and can be switched off with electric fields of about 20 MV m^?1.

     

Strontium Vanadium Oxide–Hydrides: “Square‐Planar” Two‐Electron Phases

A series of strontium vanadium oxide–hydride phases prepared by utilizing a low‐temperature synthesis strategy in which oxide ions in Sr_n+1V_nO_3n+1 (n=∞, 1, 2) phases are topochemically replaced by hydride ions to form SrVO₂H, Sr₂VO₃H, and Sr₃V₂O₅H₂, respectively. These new phases contain sheets or chains of apex‐linked V³⁺O₄ squares stacked with SrH layers/chains, such that the n=∞ member, SrVO₂H, can be considered to be analogous to “infinite‐layer” phases, such as Sr_1?xCa_xCuO₂ (the parent phase of the high‐T_c cuprate superconductors), but with a d² electron count. All three oxide–hydride phases exhibit strong antiferromagnetic coupling, with SrVO₂H exhibiting an antiferromagnetic ordering temperature, T_N>300 K. The strong antiferromagnetic couplings are surprising given they appear to arise from π‐type magnetic exchange.     

Solid‐State Structural Transformations and Photoreactivity of 1D‐Ladder Coordination Polymers of PbII

An attempt has been made to design double‐stranded ladder‐like coordination polymers (CPs) of hemidirected Pb^II. Four CPs, [Pb(μ‐bpe)(O₂C‐C₆H₅)₂] ? 2H₂O ( 1 ), [Pb₂(μ‐bpe)₂(μ‐O₂C‐C₆H₅)₂(O₂C‐C₆H₅)₂] ( 2 ), [Pb₂(μ‐bpe)₂(μ‐O₂C‐p‐Tol)₂(O₂C‐p‐Tol)₂] ? 1.5 H₂O ( 3 ) and [Pb₂(μ‐bpe)₂(μ‐O₂C‐m‐Tol)₂(O₂C‐m‐Tol)₂] ( 4 ) (bpe=1,2‐bis(4′‐pyridyl)ethylene), have been synthesised and investigated for their solid‐state photoreactivity. CPs 2 – 4 , having a parallel orientation of bpe molecules in their ladder structures and being bridged by carboxylates, were found to be photoreactive, whereas CP 1 is a linear one‐dimensional (1D) CP with guest water molecules aggregating to form a hydrogen‐bonded 1D structure. The linear strands of 1 were found to pair up upon eliminating lattice water molecules by heating, which led to the solid‐state structural transformation of photostable linear 1D CP 1 into photoreactive ladder CP 2 . In the construction of the double‐stranded ladder‐like structures, the parallel alignment of C?C bonds in 2 – 4 is dictated by the chelating and μ₂‐η²:η¹ bridging modes of the benzoate and toluate ligands. The role of solvents in the formation of such double‐stranded ladder‐like structures has also been investigated. A single‐crystal‐to‐single‐crystal transformation occurred when 4 was irradiated under UV light to form [Pb₂(rctt‐tpcb)(μ‐O₂C‐m‐Tol)₂(O₂C‐m‐Tol)₂] ( 5 ).     

Formation of 1 D and 3 D coordination polymers in the solid state induced by mechanochemical and annealing treatments: bis(3-cyano-pentane-2,4-dionato) metal complexes

Bis(3-cyano-pentane-2,4-dionato) (CNacac) metal complex, [M(CNacac)(2)], which acts as both a metal-ion-like and a ligand-like building unit, forms supramolecular structures by self-assembly. Co-grinding of the metal acetates of Mn(II), Co(II), Ni(II), Cu(II) and Zn(II) with CNacacH formed a CNacac complex in all cases: mononuclear complex was formed in the cases of Mn(II), Cu(II) and Zn(II), whereas polymeric ones were formed in the cases of Fe(II), Co(II) and Ni(II). Subsequent annealing converted the mononuclear complexes of Mn(II), Cu(II) and Zn(II) to their corresponding polymers as a result of dehydration of the mononuclear complexes. The resultant Mn(II), Fe(II), Co(II), Ni(II) and Zn(II) polymeric complexes had a common 3 D structure with high thermal stability. In the case of Cu(II), a 1 D polymer was obtained. The Mn(II), Cu(II) and Zn(II) polymeric complexes returned to their original mononuclear complexes on exposure to water vapour but they reverted to the polymeric complexes by re-annealing. Co-grinding of metal chlorides with CNacacH and annealing of the mononuclear CNacac complexes prepared from solution reactions were also examined for comparison. [Mn(CNacac)(2)(H(2)O)(2)], [M(CNacac)(2)(H(2)O)] (M=Cu(II) and Zn(II)) and [M(CNacac)(2)](infinity) (M=Mn(II), Fe(II) and Zn(II)) are new compounds, which clearly indicated the power of the combined mechanochemical/annealing method for the synthesis of varied metal coordination complexes.     

Synthesis of Stoichiometric and Bulk CrN through a Solid‐State Ion‐Exchange Reaction

Chromium mononitride (CrN) exhibits interesting magnetic, structural, and electronic properties for technological applications. Experimental reports on these properties are often inconsistent owing to differences in the degree of nonstoichiometry in CrN_x. To date, the preparation of bulk and stoichiometric CrN has been challenging; most products are in the form of a thin film produced by non‐equilibrium processes, and are often nonstoichiometric and poorly crystallized. In this work, we formulated a solid‐state ion‐exchange route for the synthesis of CrN under high pressure. The final CrN product is phase‐pure, stoichiometric, and well‐crystallized in the bulk form. Near‐stoichiometric and well‐crystallized CrN can be synthesized using the same route at atmospheric pressure, making massive and industrial‐scale production technologically feasible. The successful synthesis of stoichiometric and bulk CrN is expected to open new opportunities in diverse areas of fundamental research.