Amber L. Thompson

Red Kite II – September 2012

Sep 012012

The second meeting of the Red Kite network will be held on Tuesday 18th September, 2012 at ISIS. Attendance will be free of charge and there will be a transport from Oxford and a drinks reception thanks to generous sponsorship from ISIS. There will also be a tour of the ISIS facility, followed by a microsymposium, comprising a number of short talks by local speakers, focussed on the use of neutrons in structural science and ending with a drinks reception and poster session.

Please check out the program for more details and email Amber L. Thompson (amber.thompson @ chem.ox.ac.uk) or Marek Jura (marek.jura @ stfc.ac.uk) BY MONDAY 10TH SEPTEMBER, if you want to come on the bus, otherwise we need a complete list of names by FRIDAY 14TH SEPTEMBER to arrange security clearance for the tours of ISIS.

ISIS experimental hall

The Mystery of The Soup Dragon

Aug 282012

Can you help us solve the Mystery of the Soup Dragon? It was found, abandoned (presumably by a postman) in Amber’s pigeon-hole, in a black plastic wrapper. He’s not very talkative, just gurgles very softly occasionally, but seems to be happy making a new home in Amber’s office in Chem. Cryst. Any information on the origin of The Soup Dragon would be greatly appreciated.

The Soup Dragon

Mr. Rafal Wiewiora

Aug 202012

An undergraduate at Pembroke, Rafal joined us for 5 weeks to carry out a summer research project between his 2nd and 3rd years. Rafal is working on the inclusion compounds of deoxycholic acid, particularly the nature of the host-guest binding and order-disorder phase transitions. When he’s not enjoying chemistry in the lab, Rafal can probably be found working hard in Pembroke College boathouse.

Summer Conferences – ACA Annual Meeting 2012, ECM 27 and Aperiodic 2012

Aug 102012

Summer is conference season and the members of Chem. Cryst. have been on the road to the ACA in Boston and the ECM in Bergen. In September, Kirsten will also be attending the 7^th International Conference on Aperiodic Crystals, to be hosted in Cairns, Australia. Contributions include:

David J. Watkin, Richard I. Cooper & Anna Collins
Z’>1 Structures. Just a Nuisance or Something More Interesting? (ACA; Oral presentation)

Karim J. Sutton, Richard I. Cooper, Kirsten E. Christensen, Amber L. Thompson, David R. Allan & Sarah A. Barnett
Exploiting the Tunable Wavelength Capabilities of Synchrotron Radiation for Small Molecule Single Crystal X-ray Crystallography (ACA; Prize winning oral presentation)

Richard I. Cooper
CRYSTALS: Teaching an Old Dog New Tricks (ACA; Oral presentation)

Amber L. Thompson
When Small Molecules Get Large – A Journey into the Unknown (ECM; Oral presentation)

Anthony Linden & Amber L. Thompson
Hot topics and Structures in Molecular Chemistry (ECM; Microsymposium)

Kirsten E. Christensen & Amber L. Thompson
New Challenges in Chemical Crystallography (Aperiodic; Oral presentation)

Along the bryggen in Bergen

In Bergen

Something smells a little fishy

A BIG fishy!

It really *IS* that expensive in Norway!

Albert Einstein or Edvard Greig?

Norwegian Humour

John Fell Fund Application Successful

Jul 262012

The results have just been announced for the latest round of applications to the John Fell Oxford University Research Fund. Our application for funding for meetings for the Red Kite network over the next three years was successful, which is excellent news and should secure its immediate future.

Prof. Emmanuel Marfo-Owusu

Jul 042012

Following his degree in Tokyo studying supramolecular complexes of achiral surfactant molecules with racemic and chiral aromatic guest molecules, Emmanuel travelled extensively. He has worked at the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission as Senior Scientific officer; at the Department of Chemistry in University of Ghana as Senior Lecturer; at the Department of Chemistry in Mississippi State University, Starkville; at the Department of Chemistry in University of Washington, Seattle; at the Chemistry Department in Sultan Qaboos University in the Sultanate of Oman; at the University of Nizwa, in Oman as an Assistant Professor of Chemistry, as well as studying at the Department of Crystallography in University of Pittsburgh and the Structural Chemistry Laboratory in University of Witwatersrand, South-Africa.

Since 2010, Emmanuel has been working at the Chemistry Department at the University of Cape Coast in Ghana as an Associate Professor and he is working hard to establish the first crystallography laboratory in Ghana to serve Ghana Scientific Institutions and those in the West-Africa sub-region. Emmanuel’s current research is centred on structural studies of self assembly structures that aggregate through O-H…N, N-H…O and O-H…O inter/intramolecular interactions, with special emphasis on those that possess functional molecular properties.

Structure of the Month – May 2012

May 012012

Presented by: Nicholas G. White
Research Leader: Prof. Paul D. Beer
Published: Chemical Communications

Pyridinium-3,5-bis(triazole) can bind anions through polarised C-H···anion hydrogen bonds. We have incorporated this motif into pseudorotaxanes, catenanes and rotaxanes (in conjunction with an isophthalamide macrocycle), and the resulting interlocked architectures are formed in high yields and display interesting and unusual anion selectivities. Despite the difficulties of crystallising such systems, single crystals of a pseudorotaxane, rotaxane and catenane have all been isolated (as chloride salts). Data were collected using a Nonius Kappa-CCD, synchrotron radiation on I19 at Diamond and Cu Kα radiation with an Oxford Diffraction (Agilent) SuperNova (respectively). All three datasets are of unusually high quality for such systems (final R1 [I > 2σ(I)] = 6.9-8.0%).

Structure of the Month – May 2012

BCA Spring Meeting 2012

Apr 202012

The 2012 Meeting of the British Crystallographic Association was held at Warwick University. Oxford was very well represented this year with Kirsten Christensen chairing the Programme Committee and prizes being awarded to Joe Paddison, Nick Funnell and Emma McKinley.

Other contributions from Oxford include:

Karim J. Sutton, Kirsten E. Christensen, Amber L. Thompson & Richard I. Cooper
Exploiting the Tunable Wavelength Capabilities of I19 (Poster & Oral Presentation)

Callum A. Young & Andrew L. Goodwin
An Examination of the Low Temperature Structure of Fe₃O₄ Using Reverse Monte Carlo Refinements (Oral Presentation)

Andrew L. Goodwin
Frameworks, Flexibility and Frustration (Oral Presentation)

Kirsten E. Christensen, Amber L. Thompson & Arwen R Pearson
Discussion Forum: From Small Molecules to Proteins: Bridging the Gap

Emma J. McKinley, Kirsten E. Christensen & Amber L. Thompson
Investigation of the Transient Modulated Phase of Barluenga’s Reagent (Poster)

Andrew B. Cairns, Amber L. Thompson, Andrew L, Goodwin, Matthew G. Tucker & Julien Haines
Anomalous Compression of Cyanide Frameworks: Mechanisms for Extreme Negative Response (Poster)

Callum A. Young, Edward Dixon, Michael A. Hayward & Andrew L. Goodwin
Apical Oxygen Bonding in YBCO – A Reverse Monte Carlo Approach (Poster)

Ines E. Collings, Andrew B. Cairns, Amber L. Thompson, Andrew L, Goodwin, Philip Pattison, Julien Haines, Matthew G. Tucker, Julia E. Parker & Chiu C. Tang
Transferable Mechanics in Molecular Framework Materials (Poster)

Joseph A. M. Paddison, Andrew L. Goodwin, Ross Stewart, Pascal Manuel, Matthias J. Gutmann, David A. Keen, Matthew G. Tucker, Andrew Wildes & Brian Rainford
Frustration and Magnetic Diffuse Scattering in β-Mn_0.8Co_0.2 and MnO: A Reverse Monte Carlo Study (Poster)

Matthew Cliffe & Andrew L. Goodwin
Disorder and Defects in Zirconium MOFs (Poster)

Nicholas P. Funnell, Martin T. Dove Andrew L. Goodwin Simon Parsons & Matthew G. Tucker
How Molecules Prepare to Undergo a Transition: The Onset of Disorder in Solid Cyclohexane (Poster).

Karim speaks to the Young Crystallographers

Emma, Richard and Ines go to the conference dinner

Ines and Emma

This time Karim brought his Dad…

Callum and Emma at Dinner

Kirsten presents Nick with his prize

Emma receives her prize

Contemplating Fourier Transforms…

Alkyl-chain Disorder in Tetraisohexylammonium Bromide

Mar 192012

Acta Cryst. (2012), C68, o152-o155. [ doi:10.1107/S0108270112009377 ]

Tetraisohexylammonium bromide [systematic name: tetrakis(4-methylpentyl)azanium bromide], C₂₄H₅₂N⁺·Br^–, is a powerful structure II clathrate hydrate crystal-growth inhibitor. The crystal structure, in the space group P3₂21, contains one ammonium cation and one bromide anion in the asymmetric unit, both on general positions. At 100 K, the ammonium cation exhibits one ordered isohexyl chain and three disordered isohexyl chains. At 250 K, all four isohexyl chains are disordered. In an effort to reduce the disorder in the alkyl chains, the crystal was thermally cycled, but the disorder remained, indicating that it is dynamic in nature.

Tetraisohexylammonium Bromide

Electronic reprints

Oxford University Research Archive [direct pdf]

Publisher’s copy

IUCr

Dr. David R. Allan

Mar 072012

Dave is the Principal Beamline Scientist on the small-molecule single-crystal diffraction beamline, I19. Before his appointment at Diamond in 2006, Dave was a lecturer in The School of Physics at The University of Edinburgh and he laterally held an EPSRC Advanced Research Fellowship within The School of Chemistry. Apart from developing the beamline to improve its capabilities for the ever increasing user base, his main research interests involve the high-pressure and low-temperature polymorphism of small-molecule systems and the development of in situ crystal growth techniques. Dave can occasionally been seen around the department, usually on Tuesdays, when he gets the chance to attend the Chem. Cryst. group meetings.

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