Themed collection Commemorating Michael Faraday (1791-1867)

To mark the sesquicentenary of his passing, this editorial, by one of Michael Faraday’s distant successors as Director and Fullerian Professor at the RI, focuses on Faraday's output and influence as a scientist.

This feature article discusses developmental bottleneck issues in surface Raman spectroscopy in its early stages and surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) in the past four decades and future perspectives.

The unique power of neutron spectroscopy to probe molecular behaviour in catalytic systems is illustrated. Vibrational spectroscopy and quasielastic scattering techniques are introduced, along with their use in probing methanol-to-hydrocarbons and methane reforming catalysis, and also hydrocarbon behaviour in microporous catalysts.

The gas-phase chemistry underpinning the chemical vapour deposition of diamond from microwave-activated methane/hydrogen plasmas is surveyed.

The replacement of mercuric chloride in the production of vinyl chloride monomer, a precursor to PVC, would greatly reduce the environmental impact of this large scale industrial process.

This article outlines many of Michael Faraday's views on, and experiments with, platinum. It also describes the continuing importance and utilization of platinum, both as perceived in 1989 and from present perspectives.

Experimental evidence for long range surface forces in ionic liquids is collated and examined, key outstanding questions are identified, and possible mechanisms underpinning these long range forces are explored.

Transient electrochemistry is a powerful method to solve many physicochemical issues.

Photoinduced force microscopy (PiFM) can probe the structural and catalytic information of functional porous materials at nanometer scale resolution.

Charge-transfer dyes are explored for photocatalytic H₂ evolution (DSP) and dye-sensitised photoelectrochemical applications (DSPEC).

Oxidative etching was used to produce gold seeds of different sizes and crystal habits.

Unusual ¹H and ¹³C NMR shifts for paramagnetic bisoximato copper(II) complexes are understood by combining DFT calculations and multidimensional experiments.

Fluorescent quantum dots functionalized with Gd(III) MRI contrast agents produce an unprecedentedly high T₁ relaxivity per particle (6800 mM⁻¹ s⁻¹).

In situ ³¹P solid-state NMR studies of mechanochemical halogen bond formation provide insights into the cocrystallisation process and an estimate of the activation energy.

Three and six ferrocenyl subunits have been attached to the periphery of subphthalocyanines (SubPcs).

The array of naphthyl chromophores in a self-assembled cage can effect photoinduced energy- or electron-transfer to guests in the central cavity.

A thiophene-based molecular rotor was used to probe ordering and viscosity within artificial lipid bilayers and live cell plasma membranes.

We report on the orthogonal, highly directional and reversible self-assembly of porphyrins onto TiO₂ nanoparticles by means of hydrogen bonding interactions.

Neutron scattering methods studying mobility and vibrational spectra observed complete room temperature methoxylation in a commercial sample of methanol-to-hydrocarbons (MTH) catalyst H-ZSM-5.

An unprecedented near-linear bis(amide) f-element complex has been prepared by utilizing bulky silylamide ligands. This Sm(II) complex is a blueprint for the next generation of single molecule magnets, where predictions for the Dy(III) analogue suggest they could operate above 77 K.