The interaction of silver(i) salts with alkenes is shown to be a useful synthon for the assembly of both discrete and polymeric metallosupramolecular architectures. The three isomers of divinylbenzene lead to a diverse range of adducts, seven of which have been structurally characterized by X-ray crystallography.

In this paper, we give an overview of our research exploring the impact of physical and chemical processing on food proteins. There are three themes, applied to the proteins of wheat, soya, egg and dairy foods. Firstly, the impact of the Maillard reaction on food proteins is discussed, with a particular focus on how the reactions might be harnessed to manipulate food texture. Secondly, the potential of enzymatic protein-protein crosslinking is considered, especially the enzyme transglutaminase. Thirdly, the broader question of how the aggregation of proteins within a food is altered by chemical and physical modification and how, in turn, this might impact on the overall nutritional quality of the food is considered.

X-Ray crystal structures are reported for five silver(I) complexes of four monoterpenoid alkenes. Discrete mononuclear complexes of the chiral alkenes (1S)-(-)-α-pinene and (1S)-(-)-β-pinene with silver perchlorate and silver hexafluorophosphate are described. The achiral diene γ-terpinene forms a discrete mononuclear adduct with silver hexafluorophosphate and a two-dimensional polymeric network structure with silver triflate. The chiral diene (R)-(+)-limonene forms a one-dimensional chiral coordination polymer with silver hexafluorophosphate. In all structures the silver atom is η 2 -bonded to the carbon-carbon bond(s) of the monoterpene with slightly longer bond distances to the more substituted carbon of the alkene moiety.

Pyrazine mono-N-oxide reacts with silver salts to form either discrete complexes involving monodentate N-coordination or 1D coordination polymers in which the ligand acts in a N,O-bridging bidentate coordination mode.