The attempt to decorate carbon nanotubes with organic molecules as a powerful means to form new functional materials has attracted broad attention in the scientific community. Here, we report the functionalization of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) with zinc porphyrins (ZnP) using very mild conditions to afford a series of SWNTs-ZnP (1 and 2) electron donor-acceptor conjugates. Owing to the presence of either one or two ZnP, introduced via "click chemistry", different absorption cross sections were realized. Important in this context is that the covalent linkages between SWNT and ZnP were corroborated by monitoring the diagnostic signature of the nitrogen atoms as part of the formed triazole ring by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The resulting SWNTs-ZnP 1 and 2 were fully characterized. This characterization was complemented by a full-fledged investigation of their electrochemical and photophysical properties. In particular, appreciably strong electronic coupling between the photo- and electroactive constituents (i.e., SWNT and ZnP) led to rapid excited-state deactivation of ZnP via charge transfer to the nanotubes. Here, the different absorption cross sections throughout the visible part of the solar spectrum turned out to be valuable in enhancing the overall light-harvesting features. Upon photoexcitation, for both SWNTs-ZnP 1 and 2, radical ion pair states (i.e., reduced SWNT and oxidized ZnP) are formed. The charge-separated states decay to regenerate the singlet ground state with lifetimes of 820 and 200 ps for 1 and 2, respectively.

Using asymmetric catalysis to simultaneously form carbon–carbon bonds and generate single isomer products is strategically important. Suzuki-Miyaura cross-coupling is widely used in the academic and industrial sectors to synthesize drugs, agrochemicals and biologically active and advanced materials. However, widely applicable enantioselective Suzuki-Miyaura variations to provide 3D molecules remain elusive. Here we report a rhodium-catalysed asymmetric Suzuki-Miyaura reaction with important partners including aryls, vinyls, heteroaromatics and heterocycles. The method can be used to couple two heterocyclic species so the highly enantioenriched products have a wide array of cores. We show that pyridine boronic acids are unsuitable, but they can be halogen-modified at the 2-position to undergo reaction, and this halogen can then be removed or used to facilitate further reactions. The method is used to synthesize isoanabasine, preclamol, and niraparib—an anticancer agent in several clinical trials. We anticipate this method will be a useful tool in drug synthesis and discovery.

Polyoxometalates covalently linked to one or two spiropyran entities have been isolated. These organic-inorganic hybrids exhibit multi-electrochromic and photochromic properties.

Single enantiomer molecules are important for the pharmaceutical and agrochemical industries and increasingly so in materials science. Most strategies to obtain enantiomerically enriched molecules rely on either generating new stereogenic centres from prochiral substrates or resolving racemic mixtures of enantiomers. Dynamic asymmetric processes are powerful methods that use racemic mixtures of chiral substrates as starting material. This Feature Article focuses on asymmetric additions to racemic substrates using non-stabilized sp- and sp-hybridized nucleophiles. These reactions bear considerable resemblance to traditional sp-sp cross-coupling reactions in terms of the starting materials used and the products obtained, but the reaction mechanisms are necessarily different.

Enantiomerically enriched allyl halides are rare due to their configurational lability. Stable piperidine-based allyl chloride enantiomers can be produced via kinetic resolution, and undergo highly enantiospecific catalyst-free substitutions.