Two Cronin group polyoxometalate articles back-to-back in Angewandte Chemie
Two papers from the group appeared in the latest issue of Angewandte Chemie covering very different approaches to polyoxometalate chemistry. In “Directed Assembly of Inorganic Polyoxometalate-based Micrometer-Scale Tubular Architectures by Using Optical Control”, laser-induced flow patterns are used to direct the self-assembly of dissolved inorganic polyoxometalate clusters into robust, hollow tubular networks and micro-materials in real time. This technique where tubes ‘go with the flow’ allows development of devices in which the self-assembled tubes act as microscopic flow channels. This work is also featured on the cover of the journal. A few pages later, in “Assembly of a Gigantic Polyoxometalate Cluster {W200Co8O660} in a Networked Reactor System”, a networked reactor system is used for the first time for the discovery and synthesis of new polyoxometalates, including a gigantic {W200} tungstate. The system comprising three interlinked reactors was used to screen multiple one-pot reactions and reaction variables to discover conditions for cluster synthesis in an automated way.