{"id":22545,"date":"2022-06-20T14:01:21","date_gmt":"2022-06-20T08:16:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/?p=22545"},"modified":"2022-06-20T14:01:26","modified_gmt":"2022-06-20T08:16:26","slug":"scientists-serendipitously-discover-rare-cluster-compound","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/scientists-serendipitously-discover-rare-cluster-compound\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists serendipitously discover rare cluster compound"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Scientists at Kyoto University\u2019s Institute for Cell-Material Sciences have discovered a novel cluster compound that could prove useful as a catalyst. Compounds, called polyoxometalates, contain a large metal-oxide cluster carry a negative charge. They are found everywhere, from anti-viral medicines to rechargeable batteries and flash memory devices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new cluster compound is a hydroxy-iodide (HSbOI) and is unusual, as it has large, positively charged clusters. Only a handful of such positively charged cluster compounds have been found and studied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn science, the discovery of new material or molecule can create a new science,\u201d says Kyoto University chemist Hiroshi Kageyama. \u201cI believe that these new positively charged clusters have great potential.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The metal oxide clusters obtained in this study are positively (+) charged unlike conventional negatively (-) charged ones. Its surface protons are highly acidic, which is important in catalysis. PHOTO:<\/strong>\u00a0Mindy Takamiya\/Kyoto University iCeMS<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The first metal oxide cluster was discovered in 1826. Chemists have since synthesized hundreds of compounds with negatively charged clusters, which have properties useful in magnetism, catalysis, ionic conduction, biological applications, and quantum information. Their properties make them useful in diverse fields from catalysis to medicine and chemical synthesis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In more recent years, scientists have focused their attention on synthesizing compounds with positively charged clusters and learning their properties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kageyama and his colleague Ryu Abe found their positive cluster by accident. Since 2016, the two scientists \u2013 Kageyama, a solid-state chemist, and Abe, a catalytic chemist \u2013 have been on a quest to develop new compounds that can absorb visible light for photocatalysis. They were studying a chlorine-containing (Sb4<\/sub>O5<\/sub>Cl2<\/sub>) compound and trying to replace the chlorine atom with iodine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHowever, a new material that was completely different from what we expected was obtained accidentally,\u201d says Kageyama.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What the scientists expected was a material that contains 22 atoms in the unit cell. What they got instead was a compound that contains 800 atoms in its unit cell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the beginning, the scientists could not unravel the chemical\u2019s structure. A traditional technique called powder X-ray diffraction failed when faced with the material\u2019s complexity. After a year, Kageyama thought he could use three-dimensional electron tomography, a cutting-edge electron microscopy technique that has attracted recent attention as a tool to image the structure of proteins. The scientists approached Artem Abakumov and Joke Hadermann at University of Antwerp, Belgium, to work on the structure. And when their collaborators sent the data back, the scientists were thrilled to see large clusters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Further lab work showed the hydroxyiodide molecule contained acidic protons, which is important in catalysis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis finding may open up new possibilities in the design of solid-state catalysts,\u201d says Kageyama.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scientists at Kyoto University\u2019s Institute for Cell-Material Sciences have discovered a novel cluster compound that could prove useful as a catalyst.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22546,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/kageyama_takamiya.jpg",1100,663,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/kageyama_takamiya-200x200.jpg",200,200,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/kageyama_takamiya-664x400.jpg",664,400,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/kageyama_takamiya-768x463.jpg",750,452,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/kageyama_takamiya-675x407.jpg",675,407,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/kageyama_takamiya.jpg",1100,663,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/kageyama_takamiya.jpg",1100,663,false],"ultp_layout_landscape_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/kageyama_takamiya.jpg",1100,663,false],"ultp_layout_landscape":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/kageyama_takamiya.jpg",870,524,false],"ultp_layout_portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/kageyama_takamiya.jpg",600,362,false],"ultp_layout_square":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/kageyama_takamiya.jpg",600,362,false],"newspaper-x-single-post":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/kageyama_takamiya-760x490.jpg",760,490,true],"newspaper-x-recent-post-big":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/kageyama_takamiya-550x360.jpg",550,360,true],"newspaper-x-recent-post-list-image":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/kageyama_takamiya-95x65.jpg",95,65,true],"web-stories-poster-portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/kageyama_takamiya.jpg",640,386,false],"web-stories-publisher-logo":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/kageyama_takamiya.jpg",96,58,false],"web-stories-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/kageyama_takamiya.jpg",150,90,false]},"author_info":{"info":["RevoScience"]},"category_info":"Research<\/a>","tag_info":"Research","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22545\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}