Single Crystals as Reaction Vessels
Tuesday, September 2, 2008 - 09:56
in Physics & Chemistry
Japanese researchers from the University of Tokyo have made a complex that crystallizes as a porous solid. Common reagents, even bulky ones, can easily diffuse into these pores and are sufficiently mobile to react with embedded substrates. As they report in the journal Angewandte Chemie, the pores act as a sort of crystalline molecular test tube. The reaction products can then be directly examined by X-ray crystallographic methods.