Professor in Synthetic Organic Chemistry University of California, Irvine is hiring. Apply now!

Please RT!

The Dept of Chemistry at UC Irvine invites applications for a tenured faculty position in Synthetic Organic Chemistry. Deadline: July 1, 2026.

More information about the position can be found here: recruit.ap.uci.edu/JPF10109

@uciphyssci.bsky.social

Screenshot of "Manage Plugins" window in Avogadro2, including over 20 plugins. A table shows several plugins including generators, RDKit, cclib, build-ase, xtb, aimnet2, genice2, TurtleMol, multicharge, antechamber, chiraltube, etc. with a README on the right hand side and buttons to search, install from a local directory, remove selected, and install / update selected

Screenshot of an example plugin for Chiraltube, indicating n, m values, number of repeats, and material, with MoS2 selected and the generated nanotube in the background with yellow spheres for sulfur atoms and turquoise spheres for Mo atoms

Screenshot of ORCA input generator, showing Basic, SCF, Basis, and Electronic Property tabs, and input file text.

Avogadro 2.0 isn't just a viewer and editor — it's an extensible platform for chemistry

A plugin system lets you add ML & electrostatic models, new builders and tools. Already over 20 available…

Build the tools you need: avogadro.cc/develop/plug...
#avogadro #openscience #compchem #opensource

Rendering of Ziegler–Natta zirconium catalyst with blue-green translucent sphere representing the Zr atom, and ball-and-stick rendering of cyclopentadienyl (Cp) rings and methyl group

Screenshot of Avogadro 2 template tool, indicating a tab for Element: Formal Charge: and the options for Coordination selected, with options 1: Linear, 2: Linear, 3: Trigonal Planar, 4: Tetrahedral, 4: Square Planar, 5: Trigonal Bipyramidal, 5: Square Pyramidal, 6: Octahedral, 6: Trigonal Prism, 7: Pentagonal Bipyramidal, 8: Square Antiprism

Ball and stick rendering of chlorophyll c2 molecule with larger green sphere representing the Mg(II) ion

Screenshot of symmetric (D5d) ferrocene with rotation axes illustrated as red cylinders. Orange sphere is an iron atom, and grey-white cylinders indicate the cyclopentadienyl ligands. Dialog text indicates D5d symmetry, tabs for "Molecule", "Operations", "Subgroups" with operations active, indicating a table of symmetry elements, classes, and element. At the bottom of the dialog is Tolerance: Normal and a button "Detect Symmetry"

Inorganic and organometallic chemists — Avogadro 2.0 is for you...

A new template tool lets you build octahedral, tetrahedral, and other complexes in seconds. Click to add functional groups. Avogadro also detects symmetry and displays symmetry elements

#compchem #openscience #opensource

If you've got something really big - 100,000 atoms, a million atoms? I'd really like to try it out.

No fooling, Avogadro 2.0.0 is finally here!

Rebuilt from the ground up: fast modern rendering, improved stability, designed for the next generation of molecular, biomolecule, and materials research & education. 🧪 ⚗️

avogadro.cc/install/
discuss.avogadro.cc

#opensource #openscience #compchem

Hacking 3D printers as laboratory robots The emergence of affordable and reliable 3D printers has enabled laboratories to optimize setups, print custom parts, accelerate research, and rapidly prototype. A new movement has emerged in the past...

How to make your own robot!
A review of people making awesome lab robots out of commercial 3D printers. Thank you @vsaggiomo.bsky.social and Sander for inviting me to help write this paper in @digital-discovery.rsc.org.

Beep boop! 🤖 #chemsky
doi.org/10.1039/D5DD...

Brewing better batteries: Faculty Nutshell Talks 2026 YouTube video by Center for Communicating Science at Virginia Tech

Excited to share that my Faculty Nutshell Talk is now online!

In this short piece, I talk about how our lab looks to nature for inspiration in energy storage 🔋🍄⚡️✨

Potassium tert-Butoxide: Solubility, Solution Structure, and Reactivity Fundamental properties including solubility and structure–reactivity correlations of potassium tert-butoxide (KOtBu) are described in this manuscript. A combination of donor solvent titration, diffusion NMR, and DFT studies established that KOtBu exists in one of three solution structures: (1) unsolvated cubic tetramer in non-Lewis basic solvents, (2) disolvated cubic tetramer in Lewis basic solvents, and (3) solvated monomer in protic solvents. These studies dispel the notion that strong aprotic donor solvents lead to deaggregation of KOtBu cubic tetramer. In DMSO, a concentration-dependent equilibrium mixture of bis-DMSO-solvated cubic tetramer, dimsylpotassium, and tert-butanol is formed. Donor solvent association with potassium was contextualized in terms of periodic trends within the alkali metal series. The previously reported 1:1 complex of KOtBu and tert-butanol was found to be highly insoluble and affords poor availability of KOtBu when employed in a model dehydrohalogenation reaction. Reactivity can be recovered by the inclusion of strongly Lewis basic donor solvents that disproportionately stabilize the transition state.

So you think you know KOtBu…
Well my colleagues in #PfizerChemistry process chem have done some amazing work to find out a lot more about a very useful base #ChemSky

That's awesome!

If you're looking for a way to keep your files synced across multiple computers, I use syncthing and love it.

#ChemSky

I don't promote all our papers on here...like they are ALL AWESOME (of course they are, I wrote them, and you should be honoured to have access to my GREAT THOUGHTS) but this one is a bit special. And has broad implications.

doi.org/10.26434/che...

⚗️📜🧵

Okay, as promised, here's a summary of "keeping up with the literature" tools #chemsky

What I want is a "sort by best" tool that learns my preferences.

I'm not sure there's a perfect solution now, but there are some promising tools...

Hey #ChemSky. I'm wondering what PhD applicants are experiencing this year. I have a student with essentially a 4.0, 3 years of research experience in my group, 1 summer (another pending) interning at Pfizer who currently has no offers. IMO this is complete nonsense. He's getting antsy.

Website updated, so re-posting. #ChemJobs #ChemChat We are searching for a 2-year Visiting Assistant Professor to help teach our 100-level & organic chemistry courses (sabbatical replacement over the next two years). We have a search page with more info. www.skidmore.edu/chemistry-an...

Rendering of highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) of a conjugated molecule showing conventional orbital isosurfaces in red and blue bubbles.

Rendering of highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) of a conjugated molecule showing volumetric electron density in shades of red and blue clouds

Obviously a lot is going on (gestures widely)

Amid chaos, I cope by doing *something* -- anything. Lately, it's been coding for @avogadro.cc because it feels like some small change I can do myself

For *years* I've wanted to show electron density volumes .. little clouds ☁️☁️

#compchem

this is a fascinating article, featuring a ton of analytical chemists arguing with one another #chemchat

Flash Communication: Structural Confirmation, Bonding, and Reactivity of an I(V) Analogue of Weiss’s Reagent Structural confirmation of an iodine(V) analogue of Weiss’s reagent, [ArI-O(Pyr)2]2+, is reported using monodentate pyridine ligands and a nitro-substituted arene to provide protection from electrophi...

Dilushini’s paper from her masters work comes out with a strong supporting cast! We promised reactive I(V)….Here’s some reactive I(V).

pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

Decoding the Nested, Multicycle Mechanism of Ni-Catalyzed Redox-Neutral Cross-Coupling through Temperature Scanning Reaction Calorimetry Catalytic reactions involving multiple cycles are common in many key organic transformations. We report a detailed mechanistic analysis of one such network of “nested” cycles, the Ni-catalyzed cross-c...

Out today on JACS ASAP - Baran/Blackmond collaboration demonstrating the power of temperature scanning reactions in mechanistic studies of multicycle catalytic systems. Fantastic work by @dacagan.bsky.social and Aron Peter and Phil who is still over on the other place.

pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10....

Steric and Electronic Control of Regioselectivity in Salophen Metal Complex-Catalyzed Epichlorohydrin Acetolysis Salophen ligands and their complexes with transition metals Cu(II), Fe(II), Fe(III), and Co(II) were synthesized and characterized by UV–vis, IR, and 1H NMR spectroscopy. The catalytic activity of the...

Haven’t posted in a while here but - Thrilled to announce: a research paper with former Fulbright visiting scholar Dr. Kseniia Yutilova has been published in the Journal of Organic Chemistry! doi.org/10.1021/acs.....

🧵 1/?: Switching a Research Desktop to Linux (Intro & Prehistory)

1/
This is the first in a series of threads/mini-tutorials I'll be posting on switching a real academic research & development desktop to Linux.
Not a “open source rocks” 🧵— this is about doing actual science.
#ChemSky #AcademicSky

Question I never thought of before: Do anti-static ionizers work in argon? I know an alpha particle (if you're using a Po-based ionizer) is going to be way way more energetic than Ar ionization energy, but unsure about all the secondary reactions, etc....

UNCW's Dept of Chem and Biochem is looking for four (4!) new members this cycle including:

Asst Professor Analytical Chem
Asst Professor Physical Chem
Lecturer - Bio- and general Chem
Lecturer - General Chem

Our dept is a great place to work and Wilmington's a blast!
#ChemSky #ChemJobs
Links ⬇️

Could we just get all graduate programs in a field to use a common app already?

(S)-cargot (R)-cargot

When all the carbons are indistinguishable because they interconvert through 👻ℚ𝕦𝕒𝕟𝕥𝕦𝕞 𝕋𝕦𝕟𝕟𝕖𝕝𝕚𝕟𝕘👻
Meet my new friend, the Armilenyl cation:
doi.org/10.1021/acs....

any suggestions for a equivalent reagent for Na/Hg?

One of the best reasons to have an autosampler

Ok that's a good one

Dear lord, it's worse than I imagined!