So, with 2008 drawing to a close, we thought we’d select our favourites from the chemistry we’ve covered this year. The five of us editors had two picks each, so here’s our top 10 (in no particular order):<\/p>\n
Gav<\/a><\/p>\n Ion transport: Testing the water<\/a><\/p>\n Eigen complexes, Zundel complexes, Grotthuss mechanism: there\u2019s some great terminology related to water structure but we still don\u2019t fully understand it! This paper was a good example of how fancy spectroscopic techniques can be used to understand just what is going on with the seriously speedy diffusion of hydroxide ions in water.<\/p>\n Catalytic hydrogenation: Guided by theory <\/a><\/p>\n The importance of heterogeneous catalysis to the chemical industry really can\u2019t be overstated, so one of my favourites this year was this theoretical paper by Jens N\u00f8rskov and friends. They use computational methods to seek out the best (and economically viable) alternatives to expensive industry-standard hydrogenation catalysts. Watch out for a review in this area next year!<\/p>\n Stu<\/p>\n Nobel Prize 2008: Green fluorescent protein<\/a><\/p>\n Over the past few years GFP<\/span> has been a favourite pick in the numerous ‘what will win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry this year’ lists. And now it has \u2014 and deservingly so. The question is, what will be the consensus pick for the next few years?<\/p>\n Coordination polymers: Ringing the changes<\/a><\/p>\n A research highlight that combines two of my favourite things \u2014 beer and football…no wait, I mean coordination polymers and Borromean rings.<\/p>\n Steve<\/a><\/p>\n Organocatalysis: Making light work of it<\/a><\/p>\n Most organocatalytic reactions involve typical polar reactions between one nucleophilic and one electrophilic partner. Not only is this approach radical, solving a long-standing problem in asymmetric synthesis, it was also the easiest headline I wrote all year.<\/p>\n Enzyme catalysis: Enantioselectivity evolved<\/a><\/p>\n Everyone knows that enzymes are good catalysts, but the search for the right enzyme can be a long one. I love the idea of training an enzyme to do what you want \u2013 and biasing evolution by using a clever reaction design is probably the ultimate way of achieving this.<\/p>\n Anne<\/a><\/p>\n Chirality: Handed over<\/a><\/p>\n Chirality can be a somewhat tricky property to introduce in materials. Here, the chirality of organic linkers is preserved and passed on to the bulk of an organosilicate material directly during the synthesis \u2014 a very elegant chirality transfer.<\/p>\n Molecular network: Random order<\/a> <\/p>\n Check out these molecules that, when adsorbed onto a surface, form hexagonal \u2018holes\u2019 in a regular array regardless of how they arrange themselves. This leads to an ordered \u2014 yet aperiodic \u2014 molecular network.<\/p>\n Neil<\/a><\/p>\n Protein chemistry: Handy crystallization<\/a><\/p>\n The combination of painstaking chemical synthesis of both forms of the protein, followed by the conceptual leap to crystallise both of them in order to get the X-ray structure, made these two papers extremely impressive. And when you add the cool application \u2013 antifreeze proteins to help preserve donated organs \u2014 it adds up to work that made me say \u2018I wish we\u2019d published it!\u2019<\/p>\n Superconductivity: The good samarium<\/a><\/p>\n It’s solid state inorganic chemistry, it’s superconductivity \u2014 I love it. This is just a sample of the ‘gold rush’ of work that was triggered by the pnictide superconductors.<\/p>\n And slightly less seriously, here are our top 10 Research Highlight headlines of the year:<\/p>\n Come on silene<\/a><\/p>\n The magnificent seven<\/a><\/p>\n Cage closed<\/p>\n The good samarium<\/p>\n Heterogeneous chemistry on Mars<\/a><\/p>\n All features great and small<\/a><\/p>\n Knot your usual molecules<\/p>\n Supersize sandwich<\/a><\/p>\n The 39 steps<\/a><\/p>\n Caught in a trap<\/a><\/p>\n And many thanks to Jane for copy-editing and Dipti for publishing everything for us all year!<\/p>\n Neil<\/p>\n Neil Withers (Associate Editor, Nature Chemistry<\/a><\/em>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So, with 2008 drawing to a close, we thought we\u2019d select our favourites from the chemistry we\u2019ve covered this year. The five of us editors had two picks each, so here\u2019s our top 10 (in no particular order): … Read more<\/a> Continue reading