So I thought I might post something chemistry-related - something I haven't done in a while. Below are three papers I have read recently. After reading almost any of Fujita's papers, I always think to myself "wish I would have published that". His work is simple (in theory), which gives it an intangible elegance. Here (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2007, 129, 1850) he uses light to labilise his Pt-pyridyl metallocyclic systems to give the thermodynamically more stable (due to hydrophobic effects/pi-pi stacking) catenated dimers. This takes only minutes under UV light, whereas days are required if it's heated instead. Not a new concept, but nice application and mechanistic insight (photochemical mechanism is dissociative, thermal one is associative, which is of course most common for square-planar complexes).Another cool paper, also in the field of coordination chemistry, is a recent review by Nitschke (Acc. Chem. Res. 2007, 40, 103) highlighting some nice dynamic combinatorial-style work. Most people (myself included) just abhor the prospect of a mixture of products from a reaction - this guy (who, like many top supramolecular chemists, is of the Lehn pedigree) loves them! Anyway, the point of this work is that, unlike Sanders or Fujita (whose work primarily uses labile covalent and coordination bonds, respectively) Nitschke uses a bunch of very labile interactions and can, depending on the product distribution, quantify and rationalise these contributions.
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