UK chemists have designed polyoxometalate clusters with unsymmetrical architectures.

Polyoxometalate clusters are water-soluble, cluster-anion structures that have a range of potential applications from molecular devices and sensors, through to anti-viral agents or catalysts.

Lee Cronin and researchers from the University of Glasgow have adopted a hydrothermal synthetic approach to produce designed architectures which are highly unsymmetrical resulting in novel electronic and optical properties.

Previous attempts to tune the clusters by grafting ligands and other metals onto the anionic cluster frameworks usually resulted in symmetric substitution patterns, said Cronin.

According to Cronin, this move from discovery to the designed assembly of clusters heralds the beginning of programmed complexation of molecules to yield specific properties and a new range of polyoxometalate cages.  

Helen Lunn