Symmetry Breaking of α-[H2W12O40]6– Depends on the Transformation of Isopolyoxotungstates

Emerging activated tungsten dust: Source, environmental behaviors, and health effects

Fusion energy investigation has stepped to a new stage adopting deuterium and tritium as fuels from the previous stage concentrating hydrogen plasma physics. Special radiation safety issues would be introduced during this stage. In addition to industrial and military uses, tungsten is also regarded as the most promising plasma facing material for fusion reactors. During the operation of fusion reactors, tungsten-based plasma facing materials can be activated via neutron nuclear reaction. Meanwhile, activated tungsten dust can be produced when high-energy plasma interacts with the tungsten-based plasma facing materials, namely plasma wall interaction. Activated tungsten dust would be an emerging environmental pollutant with radiation toxicity containing various radionuclides in addition to the chemical toxicity of tungsten itself. Nonetheless, the historical underestimation of its environmental availability has led to limited research on tungsten compared to other environmental contaminants. This paper presents the first systematic review on the safety issue of emerging activated tungsten dust, encompassing source terms, environmental behaviors, and health effects. The key contents are as follows: 1) to detail the source terms of activated tungsten dust from aspects of tungsten basic properties, generation mechanism, physical morphology and chemical component, radioactivity, as well as potential release pathways, 2) to illustrate the environmental behaviors from aspects of atmospheric dispersion and deposition, transformation and migration in soil, as well as plant absorption and distribution, 3) to identify the toxicity and health effects from aspects of toxicity to plants, distribution in human body, as well as health effects by radiation and chemical toxicity, 4) based on the research progress, research and development issues needed are also pointed out to better knowledge of safety issue of activated tungsten dust, which would be beneficial to the area of fusion energy and ecological impact caused by the routine tungsten related industrial and military applications.

Solvent-Exchange Triggered Solidification of Peptide/POM Coacervates for Enhancing the On-Site Underwater Adhesion

Peptide-based biomimetic underwater adhesives are emerging candidates for understanding the adhesion mechanism of natural proteins secreted by sessile organisms. However, there is a grand challenge in the functional recapitulation of the on-site interfacial spreading, adhesion and spontaneous solidification of native proteins in water using peptide adhesives without applied compressing pressure. Here, a solvent-exchange strategy was utilized to exert the underwater injection, on-site spreading, adhesion and sequential solidification of a series of peptide/polyoxometalate coacervates. The coacervates were first prepared in a mixed solution of water and organic solvents by rationally suppressing the non-covalent interactions. After switching to a water environment, the solvent exchange between bulk water and the organic solvent embedded in the matrix of the peptide/polyoxometalate coacervates recovered the hydrophobic effect by increasing the dielectric constant, resulting in a phase transition from soft coacervates to hard solid with enhanced bulk cohesion and thus compelling underwater adhesive performance. The key to this approach is the introduction of suitable organic solvents, which facilitate the control of the intermolecular interactions and the cross-linking density of the peptide/polyoxometalate adhesives in the course of solidification under the water line. The solvent-exchange method displays fascinating universality and compatibility with different peptide segments.

Recent advances in isopolyoxotungstates and their derivatives

During the past decade, isopolyoxotungstates (iso-POTs) and their derivatives have been greatly developed due to their unique structures and potential applications in luminescence, magnetism, catalysis etc. This brief review is principally focused on the main research progress on iso-POTs, iso-POT-based transition-metal derivatives, iso-POT-based rare-earth derivatives, iso-POT-based organometallic derivatives and iso-POT-based heterometallic derivatives, and gives a summary of some representative examples of their syntheses, structures and related properties. In addition, an outlook on the future of this area is presented in the final section. We believe that this systematic commentary on iso-POTs and their derivatives will not only disclose a rich set of iso-POT structures, but also reveal a more promising direction for the further functionalization of iso-POTs.

Syntheses, structures and fluorescence properties of three rare-earth containing docosatungstates

Three rare-earth containing docosatungstates Na₃H₂[RE(H₂O)₄][RE(H₂O)₅]₂[W₂₂O₇₄H₂]·36H₂O [RE=Dy^III (1), Ho^III (2), Y^III (3)] have been synthesized by reaction of Na₂WO₄·2H₂O, dimethylamine hydrochloride (DMAHC) and RE(NO₃)₃·6H₂O in the aqueous solution and characterized by elemental analyses, IR spectra, thermogravimetric (TG) analysis, powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) and single-crystal X-ray diffraction. 1-3 are isomorphous and each molecular unit consists of a S-shaped docosatungstate [W₂₂O₇₄H₂]^14- polyoxoanion with two supporting [RE(H₂O)₅]³⁺ cations and one disordered [RE(H₂O)₄]³⁺ cation. The [W₂₂O₇₄H₂]^14- polyoxoanion can be viewed as combination of two hendecatungstate [W₁₁O₃₈H]^9- subunits in the staggered fashion by sharing two μ₂-O atoms. The TG curves of 1-3 reveal the one-step weight loss between 25°C to 700°C. Moreover, both 1 and 2 demonstrate the characteristic luminescence emission behaviors of the corresponding RE³⁺ ions and their lifetime decay curves can be well fitted to the double exponential function. In addition, the CIE chromaticity coordinates of 1 and 2 have been obtained based on their corresponding emission spectra, and their dominant wavelengths and color purities have been also calculated.

Chiral polyoxomolybdate-based hybrid compounds obtained by spontaneous resolution: syntheses, structures and non-linear optical properties

By spontaneous resolution, two chiral hybrid 2D architectures [MMo₆O₂₁(glycine)₃]²⁻ (M = Te 1, Se 2) were obtained, which show an SHG efficiency of about 3.5 and 3.7 × KDP.

A polyoxometalate-based inorganic-organic hybrid polymer constructed from silver-Schiff base building block and Keggin-type cluster: Synthesis, crystal structure and photocatalytic performance for the degradation of rhodamine B

One polyoxometalate-based inorganic-organic hybrid polymer [Ag3L4(PMo12O40)(CH3OH)]·CH3OH (1), where L is N,N'-bis(furan-2-ylmethylene)hydrazine, has been synthesized at room temperature and structurally characterized by infrared spectroscopy, ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy, elemental analysis, X-ray powder diffraction and X-ray single-crystal crystallography. The structure of 1 exhibits a crystalline one-dimensional polymer constructed by the connections of Keggin-type [PMo12O40](3-) anions and [Ag3L4](3+) units, in which each Ag(I) center adopted a distorted square pyramidal environment. The spectroscopic experiments show that polymer 1 not only is potential semiconductor materials but also displays the obvious photocatalytic performance for the degradation of rhodamine B.

Hydrothermal synthesis, X-ray structure and DFT and magnetic studies of a (H2SiW12O40)2− based one-dimensional linear coordination polymer

In this paper, we report the synthesis and characterization of a novel POM-based inorganic–organic hybrid with an in situ transformation of pyridine-2,3-dicarboxylic acid into nicotinic acid and 2-hydroxynicotinic acid under hydrothermal conditions.