{"id":1228,"date":"2014-06-23T11:00:15","date_gmt":"2014-06-23T02:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lookingatnothing.com\/?p=1228"},"modified":"2014-08-31T15:24:50","modified_gmt":"2014-08-31T06:24:50","slug":"nature-chemistry-publishing-on-martins-magical-molecules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lookingatnothing.com\/index.php\/archives\/1228","title":{"rendered":"Nature Chemistry publishing on Martin’s Magical Molecules"},"content":{"rendered":"

The long wait is over! A new publication<\/a> is out, this\u00a0one written by Martin Hollamby<\/a> over the course of three tough years. For those who haven’t seen his one-minute intro video<\/a>, Martin is investigating the behaviour of molecules in solvents. In his excellent paper, he shows how his range of molecules can self-assemble in (hydrophobic) solvents\u00a0to form a\u00a0variety of shapes and forms.\u00a0<\/p>\n

[ed: Martin talks about it in his own words here]<\/a><\/p>\n

Martin has achieved this self-assembly in a variety of solvents\u00a0such as\u00a0n-alkanes. His molecules consist of two segments: a solvophilic part (“likes the solvent”) and a solvophobic part (“afraid of the solvent”). His first challenge was to prove that these molecules actually self-assemble in solution, something which was not self-evident. He uses a combination of many techniques to show that this\u00a0is indeed the case, including UV\/VIS absorption (spectrometry), SANS and SAXS, cryo-TEM, POM, viscosimetry and XRD.<\/p>\n

Next, he had to show generality. He had to show that this behaviour can occur for a range of solvents, so he investigated the behaviour in toluene, chloroform and cyclohexane (no luck) and n-hexane, n-octane and n-decane (yes luck). Furthermore, he needed to adapt his molecule to show that it the same behaviour can\u00a0also be achieved for modified variants thereof.<\/p>\n

\"Martin<\/a>
Martin working hard at NIMS.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By playing around with the solvent, the molecules, the concentration and the temperature, he has shown he can thus form:<\/p>\n