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Author: Christofanis Skordas

Density of Sodium Aluminosilicate Melts Along the NaAlSiO4-NaAlSi3O8 Join at High Pressure: In-Situ Measurements and Re-Calibration of a Modified Hard-Sphere Equation of State For Silicate Melts

Density of Sodium Aluminosilicate Melts Along the NaAlSiO4-NaAlSi3O8 Join at High Pressure: In-Situ Measurements and Re-Calibration of a Modified Hard-Sphere Equation of State For Silicate Melts

Xu, Man, Zhicheng Jing, James A. Van Orman, Qingyang Hu, Qi Chen, Tony Yu, and Yanbin Wang. “Density of sodium aluminosilicate melts along the NaAlSiO4‐NaAlSi3O8 join at high pressure: In‐situ measurements and re‐calibration of a modified hard‐sphere equation of state for silicate melts.” Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth 131, no. 2 (2026): e2025JB033223.

Catching Fullerenes: Synthesis of Molecular Nanogloves

Catching Fullerenes: Synthesis of Molecular Nanogloves

Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2025, 64 (26), e202505083
DOI: 10.1002/anie.202505083
 
Researchers from Rice University, the University of Pittsburgh, Hope College and ChemMatCARS performed single-crystal X-ray diffraction at NSF’s ChemMatCARS, Sector 15 at the Advanced Photon Source (APS), Argonne National Laboratory as part of the synthesis of molecules with deep cavities termed nanogloves. A templated strategy combining resorcin[4]arene and [12]cyclo-meta-phenylene units linked by acetal bonds yields a glove-like architecture with an overall yield of ~53% in the final steps. 1H NMR titration shows association constants exceeding 106 M−1, arising from strong size complementarity and CH–π/π–π interactions, and the nanogloves selectively extract a broad range of fullerenes from carbon soot. This breakthrough points the way to scalable fullerene separation and manipulation.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.202505083
Saber Mirzaei1,2*, Hormoz Khosravi1*, Xiangquan Hu1*, M. Saeed Mirzaei1*, Victor M. Espinoza Castro1*, Xu Wang3, Nicholas A. Figueroa4, Tieyan Chang5, Ying-Pin Chen5, Gabriella Prieto Ríos2, Natalia Isabel Gonzalez-Pech4, Yu-Sheng Chen5, and Raúl Hernández Sánchez1,2,6*
 
1[*]Department of Chemistry, Rice University, 6100 Main St., Houston, Texas 77005, USA
2Department of Chemistry, University of Pittsburgh, 219 Parkman Ave., Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260, USA
3Shared Equipment Authority, Rice University, 6100 Main St., Houston, Texas 77005, USA
4Department of Chemistry, Hope College, Holland, Michigan 49423, USA
5ChemMatCARS, The University of Chicago, Lemont, Illinois 60439, USA
6Rice Advanced Materials Institute, Rice University, Houston, Texas, USA

Effect of Grafting Density on the Two-dimensional Assembly of Nanoparticles

Effect of Grafting Density on the Two-dimensional Assembly of Nanoparticles

Applied Surface Science (2025), 690, 162556
DOI: 10.7910/DVN/FBGVXD
 
The ability to fine-tune the electromagnetic properties of metal colloidal nanoparticles would allow for the development of advanced materials and devices with unique chemical and optical capabilities. Using grazing-incidence small-angle x-ray scattering and x-ray reflectivity at NSF’s ChemMatCARS, researchers from the Vaknin group at Iowa State University demonstrated that polyethylene grafted silver and gold nanoparticles form highly stable hexagonal structures at the vapor-liquid interface. They identify a critical grafting density that marks a threshold between highly ordered and poorly ordered nanoparticle structures, showing that the structural properties can be directly controlled.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169433225002703?via%3Dihub
 
Binay P. Nayak1, James Ethan Batey2,3, Hyeong Jin Kim1, Wenjie Wang2, Wei Bu4, Honghu Zhang5,6, Surya K. Mallapragada1,∗, David Vaknin7,∗
1 Ames National Laboratory, and Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011, United States
2 Division of Materials Sciences and Engineering, Ames National Laboratory, U.S. DOE, Ames, IA 50011, United States
3 Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR 72701, United States
4 NSF’s ChemMatCARS, Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, United States
5 Center for Functional Nanomaterials, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973, United States
6 National Synchrotron Light Source II, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973, United States
7 Ames National Laboratory, and Department of Physics and Astronomy, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011, United States