Self-driving labs are transforming chemistry; but high cost & complexity limit access to a few well-funded labs.

We wanted to change that.

Our new paper in #NatureSynthesis introduces RoboChem-Flex 🧪🤖

🔗https://nature.com/articles/s44160-026-01053-0

#selfdrivinglab #flowchemistry #optimization

I think the only reason he's saying this is because he probably watched one Sabine Hossenfelder video about particle physics. Everyone wants to be the Feynman iconoclast but none of them actually do the work to be one.

Reckoning with my ‘ghost years’: why a low publication rate doesn’t always reflect failure I have a five-year gap in my publication record. Last year, I published seven academic articles as either the first or corresponding author. Here’s why one level of output isn’t better than any other.

I very much agree. But try and explain this to obstinate people who believe that publication metrics *objectively* prove a scientists worth.
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Any insights into this? Or am I fortunate in not reading such papers. I'm guessing people are using it to calculate an "accurate" crystallite size?

Big ideas need strong partners 🚀 Thank you to the sponsors who make IUCr2026 in Calgary possible and help strengthen the Congress each year.

🔗 Meet our sponsors: event.fourwaves.com/...

Interested in sponsoring? Dan Cooke (APS): cooke@aps.org

Great! What's the number? I don't have the full tools so I can't search very easily without a temporary IP ban.

Checking the @ccdc.cam.ac.uk , I'm really surprised that no one seems to have reported a crystal structure of naphthalene-1,5-disulfonic acid tetrahydrate or any other polymorph/hydrate/solvate of NDSA.
If I've missed any, let me know!
#crystallography #chemistry

TOC Graphic

A dynamic pcu MOF(Zn) containing a ditopic T-shaped [2]rotaxane linker pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLandin...

Big thanks to Prof. Hazem Amarne (University of Jordan). Without his push, this work would still be languishing in my thesis. Thanks habib!

New paper! One of the hardest structures I ever worked on back in the day. Took a while to convince myself that the SBU was real!
#chemistry

pubs.rsc.org/en/content/a...

I swear, any kind of product made after the launch of generative AI is going to be completely worthless in the future.

Front cover of the report Disability-inclusive Laboratories in the Chemical Sciences. Making chemistry accessible for everyone.

Disabled scientists shouldn’t have to self-advocate just to do their jobs @rsc.org

Accessible labs = innovation #ChemSky #DisabledInSTEM

Adjustable fume hoods to assistive tech, solutions are here NOW we need action #InclusiveLabsRSC

How can we drive meaningful change?
www.rsc.org/news/disabil...

The fire brigade then proceeds to start setting up decontamination tents and hazmat suits in order to confront the next Chornobyl.

Be careful when you use the word "nuclear" folks.

A staff member saw the smoke but did not observe where the fire was coming from. As this was a large chemical plant, the local fire brigade has detailed plans for us. They called the fire brigade.
"I see smoke, and a potential fire in the NMR room".
"What's an NMR room?"
"Nuclear magnetic resonance"

This caused a lot of smoke, but was contained by the fume hood. However, for some reason the ventilation dumped a lot of the smoke into an adjacent room. In this case, the NMR room.

So a little different, but one about science communication.
This happened at a lab/chemical plant I was at. It happened in the lab next to mine while I was there but the interaction is second hand to me.

There was a fire in the lab in the early morning. A hotplate had overheated and ignited.

Canada Held the Door Open for International Students. Then Slammed It in Their Face | The Walrus They contributed more to the GDP than the entire auto industry. Now the country doesn’t want them anymore

Good article. I came to Canada as an international PhD student in 2012. PR in 2020.
How international students are exploited by the government and colleges is awful. Then they get blamed for all of Canada's recent problems. If you build a system, people will use it.

thewalrus.ca/canada-held-...

Microporosity of a Guanidinium Organodisulfonate Hydrogen‐Bonded Framework Pores now found! The porous polymorph of guanidinium 1,4-benzenedisulfonate, G2BDS, one of the simplest members of an archetypal class of hydrogen-bonded frameworks, was prepared from its acetone sol...

I really like the "0D" porosity stuff and anything with porosity. Lens work with Holman is great stuff. Bonus @ibrekalo.bsky.social!

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Love Len's work!

Inflatable porous organic crystals - Nature Materials Reversible and unidirectional expansion of an acicular porous molecular crystal is observed with gas uptake. Using in situ structural and photomicrographic techniques, a molecular-level insight is obt...

This paper on "Inflatable porous organic crystals", by Len Barbour & his collaborators, looks rather excellent.

#ChemSky

What a treat of a day! Carys had her first ferry ride, and I became a Canadian citizen. Sworn in by Dr. Mary White no less! A materials chemist welcomes in another.

I am pivoting to being an AI consumer. It's where the attention is.

I get AIs to watch the AI content for me so I don't have to.

I got accepted for a PhD in his group in 2012. I chose Canada instead. I often wonder what it would have been like to have accepted that offer.

Applying reticular synthesis to the design of Cu-based MOFs with mechanically interlocked linkers - Nano Research The concept of “robust dynamics” describes the incorporation of mechanically interlocked molecules (MIMs) into metal-organic framework (MOF) materials such that large amplitude motions (e.g., rotation or translation of a macrocycle) can occur inside the free volume pore of the MOF. To aid in the preparation of such materials, reticular synthesis was used herein to design rigid molecular building blocks with predetermined ordered structures starting from the well-known MOF NOTT-101. New linkers were synthesized that have a T-shape, based on a triphenylene tetra-carboxylate strut, and their incorporation into Cu(II)-based MOFs was investigated. The single-crystal structures of three new MOFs, UWCM-12 (fof), β-UWCM-13 (loz), UWCM-14 (lil), with naked T-shaped linkers were determined; β-UWCM-13 is the first reported example of the loz topology. A fourth MOF, UWDM-14 (lil) is analogous to UWCM-14 (lil) but contains a [2]rotaxane linker. Variable-temperature, 2H solid-state NMR was used to probe the dynamics of a 24-membered macrocycle threaded onto the MOF skeleton.

Both MOFs and MORFs in this one!

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Link to the deposited structure that I'm pretty sure these were from (it's been a while!)

www.ccdc.cam.ac.uk/structures/S...

Useful practices in single crystal diffraction analysis of reticular structures Single crystal diffraction analysis remains the gold standard for the three-dimensional atomic structure characterization of framework materials such as metal–organic frameworks, covalent organic fram...

My tutorial review on single crystal diffraction analysis is now online @crystengcomm.rsc.org! Students, supervisors, and reviewers: Please consider this thought-provoking read to discover many facets of the crystallographic practice that are often overlooked or misunderstood 💎 #crystallography

2025 chemistry Nobel prize goes to the scientists behind metal–organic frameworks Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar Yaghi take top prize for discovery and development of versatile materials with a huge surface area

Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar Yaghi are this year's winners of the Nobel prize in chemistry for their work on MOFs – just a few grams of these materials can have the same surface area as a football pitch. Julia Robinson with the details.

We have always been at war with coordination polymers.

They can be really pretty! Here's one that's a metal-organic rotaxane framework!