Themed collection HOT articles in Inorganic Chemistry Frontiers for 2015

The chemical reduction of reactive cations and comproportionation are two new strategies reported to produce halide free carborane based electrolytes for rechargeable Mg batteries.

A new oxygen-sensing material with desirable excitation/emission characteristics was achieved by using a simple guest fluorophore.

Phase-pure ternary lithium nitrides with demonstrable Li⁺ ion vacancy concentrations can be synthesised by low power microwave reactions in times reduced by orders of magnitude over conventional heating approaches; the electrochemical performance of the materials has been determined.

In situ reduction of CuCl₂ enables formation of Cu(I) complexes prone to activate molecular oxygen from air towards catalytic oxidation of 1,3-dicarbonyls.

A metal–organic combinatorial dye comprised of a ruthenium complex and an organic triphenyl amine dyad has been constructed.

We report for the first time a hybrid of soil and commercial Vulcan XC-72 carbon (labeled as soil/C) as a high-performance cathode catalyst for rechargeable lithium–oxygen batteries. It was found that soil as a low cost and metal-free void volume expander in the hybrid catalyst is promising in the application of rechargeable Li–O₂ batteries.

Axial compression and a magnetic field can help to get coherent spin qubits.

Graphene oxide and reduced graphene oxide hybrids with spin crossover complexes show the coexistence of electron conduction and unique magnetic behaviors.

The electronic structures and physical properties of [Co₂Fe₂(CN)₆(tp*)₂(dtbbpy)₄](PF₆)₂·2MeOH are investigated by DFT and TD-DFT calculations.

Copper(II) complexes containing trisubstituted guanidine ligands were prepared, characterized and evaluated for their biological applications.

The compound shown exhibits an abrupt thermal spin-transition, with an accompanying crystallographic phase change at slightly lower temperature which is visible as a shoulder on the susceptibility curve.

A β-oxazolone moiety on porpholactone plays an important role in stabilizing such hydroporphyrin structures through tuning energy gaps between the frontier π-molecular orbitals, which is verified by MCD studies combined with TD-DFT calculations.

InSe nanosheets and their coupling with P25 have been successfully synthesized via a hydrothermal–calcining process, and they were for the first time used for visible light photocatalytic H₂ production.

Control of pore distribution of porous carbons from porous coordination polymers.

A neutral mixed-sandwich zirconacarborane alkyl reacts with both internal and terminal alkynes to give the Zr–C σ bond mono-insertion products, in which both electronic and steric factors play a role in the regioselectivity.

A Cu-based metal–organic framework (HKUST-1) was synthesized from insoluble precursors and positioned using sol–gel based coatings.

We describe a 3D flexible Gd(III)-coordination polymer, constructed from a linear carboxylate ligand, which shows reversible single-crystal to single-crystal “guest-responsive fitting” of the channels and carboxylate shift process, upon inclusion of aldehyde guests.

The IO₃ groups in Na₂Sn(IO₃)₆ are aligned in a parallel manner attributed to the six-coordinate Na⁺ cation, whereas the IO₃ polyhedra in Cs₂Sn(IO₃)₆ rotate with respect to Sn⁴⁺ due to the nine-coordinate Cs⁺ cation.

Highly luminescent MOF coatings were grown on nanostructured alumina membranes via melt, electride and CVD approaches.

ZnCo₂O₄ nanoparticles were synthesized by thermal annealing of a new mixed-metal MOF and show high capacitance for electrochemical capacitors.

The fluorine atoms in BiB₂O₄F withdraw the non-bonding electrons of Bi³⁺ and thus strongly increase the SHG efficiency.

Due to the unique structural advantages, hierarchical Co₃O₄@NiO nanoarrays can be regarded as advanced electrodes for Ni–Zn batteries.