Mar 072016
 
Absolute structure determination using CRYSTALS (R.I. Cooper, D.J. Watkin and H.D. Flack)

Acta. Cryst. (2016) C72, 261-267 [ doi:10.1107/S2053229616003570 ]

A study of post-refinement absolute structure determination using previously published data was carried out using the CRYSTALS software package. We show that absolute structure determination may be carried out optimally using the analyses available in CRYSTALS, and that it is not necessary to have the … Read the rest

Dec 232015
 
ECRISLA 2015

The 3rd Edition of the School of Crystallisation and Crystallography for Latin America organised by Prof. Carlos Campos was held in December in Florianópolis, Brazil. The quiet setting in a monastery south of the main centre of Florianópolis provided ideal conditions for an intensive week of crystallography lectures, posters and discussions. Richard Cooper attended to … Read the rest

Jun 232015
 
Coordination Diversity in Hydrogen-​bonded Homoleptic Fluoride-Alcohol Complexes Modulates Reactivity (K. M. Engle, L. Pfeifer, G. W. Pidgeon, G. T. Giuffredi, A. L. Thompson, R. S. Paton, J. M. Brown & V. Gouverneur)

Chemical Science 2015, 6, 5293-5302
[doi:10.1039/c5sc01812a]

The nucleophilic reactivity of fluoride ion is altered in the presence of hydrogen-bond donors, including alcohols. Relatively little is known about the coordination involved; to rectify this, the X-ray structures of fourteen novel fluoride–alcohol complexes with tetrabutylammonium as the counterion have been determined. The coordination number … Read the rest

May 302015
 
Crystal structures of increasingly large molecules: meeting the challenges with CRYSTALS software (P. Parois, R.I. Cooper & A.L. Thompson)

Chemistry Central Journal 2015, 9:30 [ doi:10.1186/s13065-015-0105-4 ]

The size and complexity of molecules being studied by single crystal diffraction is growing year by year, resulting in an increase in the difficulties encountered during structure determination. From the crystallisation itself and sample handling, to structure solution and refinement, specific problems due to larger molecules … Read the rest

Apr 032015
 
RSC Poster Prize for Sophie at BCA 2015

Congratulations to Sophie Gearing who won an RSC CrystEngComm poster prize at the British Crystallographic Association Meeting in York for her poster “Does it Crystallise?” which presented studies of the crystallinity in a set of molecular materials.

Her research tests predictions made in recent research by Jerome Wicker by using combinatorial synthesis to access a … Read the rest

Feb 032015
 
Annotated article on RSC Learn Chemistry site

Annotated articles are based on research from a range of Royal Society of Chemistry journals that has been re-written into a standard, accessible format.

An annotated article on predicting and controlling the crystallinity of molecular materials by Jerome Wicker and Richard Cooper aims to help readers to understand the research the journal article is based … Read the rest

Nov 042014
 
Will it crystallise? Predicting crystallinity of molecular materials (J.G.P. Wicker and R.I. Cooper)

CrystEngComm (2015) 17, 1927-1934 [ doi:10.1039/C4CE01912A ]

Machine learning algorithms can be used to create models which separate molecular materials which will form good-quality crystals from those that will not, and predict how synthetic modifications will change the crystallinity.

Chemistry World Article: Will It Crystallise

Publisher’s copy

 

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Oct 302014
 
Toward the Understanding of Modulation in Molecular Materials: Barluenga's Reagent and its Analogues (Y. Kim, E.J. Mckinley, K.E. Christensen, N.H. Rees, and A.L. Thompson)

Crystal Growth & Design (2014). 14 (12), 6294–6301. [ doi:10.1021/cg500983s ]

Investigations into the phase transition of Barluenga’s reagent revealed a transient incommensurately modulated phase. To understand the origin of the modulated phase and the chemistry that can affect it, analogues of Barluenga’s reagent were synthesized and studied. In this context, the halogen and anion … Read the rest

Aug 172014
 
IUCr 2014

The triennial congress of the International Union of Crystallography was held in Montreal over 8 days in August 2014.

Contributions to the meeting from Chem. Cryst. staff and students included:

Richard I. Cooper and James A. Arnold:
Displacement Parameter Restraints for Dealing with Limited Data

Karim J. Sutton, Pascal Parois and Richard I Cooper:Read the rest