Nanoparticles under a few nanometres in size have structures and material functions that differ from the bulk because of their distinct geometrical shapes and strong quantum confinement. These qualities could lead to unique device applications. Our mass spectral analysis of CdSe nanoparticles reveals that (CdSe)(33) and (CdSe)(34) are extremely stable: with a simple solution method, they grow in preference to any other chemical compositions to produce macroscopic quantities. First-principles calculations predict that these are puckered (CdSe)(28)-cages, with four- and six-membered rings based on the highly symmetric octahedral analogues of fullerenes, accommodating either (CdSe)(5) or (CdSe)(6) inside to form a three-dimensional network with essentially heteropolar sp(3)-bonding. This is in accordance with our X-ray and optical analyses. We have found similar mass spectra and atomic structures in CdS, CdTe, ZnS and ZnSe, demonstrating that mass-specified and macroscopically produced nanoparticles, which have been practically limited so far to elemental carbon, can now be extended to a vast variety of compound systems.

Metal-organic microporous materials (MOMs) have attracted wide scientific attention owing to their unusual structure and properties, as well as commercial interest due to their potential applications in storage, separation and heterogeneous catalysis. One of the advantages of MOMs compared to other microporous materials, such as activated carbons, is their ability to exhibit a variety of pore surface properties such as hydrophilicity and chirality, as a result of the controlled incorporation of organic functional groups into the pore walls. This capability means that the pore surfaces of MOMs could be designed to adsorb specific molecules; but few design strategies for the adsorption of small molecules have been established so far. Here we report high levels of selective sorption of acetylene molecules as compared to a very similar molecule, carbon dioxide, onto the functionalized surface of a MOM. The acetylene molecules are held at a periodic distance from one another by hydrogen bonding between two non-coordinated oxygen atoms in the nanoscale pore wall of the MOM and the two hydrogen atoms of the acetylene molecule. This permits the stable storage of acetylene at a density 200 times the safe compression limit of free acetylene at room temperature.

Carbon monoxide (CO) produced in many large-scale industrial oxidation processes is difficult to separate from nitrogen (N2), and afterward, CO is further oxidized to carbon dioxide. Here, we report a soft nanoporous crystalline material that selectively adsorbs CO with adaptable pores, and we present crystallographic evidence that CO molecules can coordinate with copper(II) ions. The unprecedented high selectivity was achieved by the synergetic effect of the local interaction between CO and accessible metal sites and a global transformation of the framework. This transformable crystalline material realized the separation of CO from mixtures with N2, a gas that is the most competitive to CO. The dynamic and efficient molecular trapping and releasing system is reminiscent of sophisticated biological systems such as heme proteins.

A time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) approach coupled with 14 different exchange-correlation functionals was used for the prediction of vertical excitation energies in zinc phthalocyanine (PcZn). In general, the TDDFT approach provides a more accurate description of both visible and ultraviolet regions of the UV-vis and magnetic circular dichroism (MCD) spectra of PcZn in comparison to the more popular semiempirical ZINDO/S and PM3 methods. It was found that the calculated vertical excitation energies of PcZn correlate with the amount of Hartree-Fock exchange involved in the exchange-correlation functional. The correlation was explained on the basis of the calculated difference in energy between occupied and unoccupied molecular orbitals. The influence of PcZn geometry, optimized using different exchange-correlation functionals, on the calculated vertical excitation energies in PcZn was found to be relatively small. The influence of solvents on the calculated vertical excitation energies in PcZn was considered for the first time using a polarized continuum model TDDFT (PCM-TDDFT) method and was found to be relatively small in excellent agreement with the experimental data. For all tested TDDFT and PCM-TDDFT cases, an assignment of the Q-band as an almost pure a1u (HOMO)-->eg (LUMO) transition, initially suggested by Gouterman, was confirmed. Pure exchange-correlation functionals indicate the presence of six 1Eu states in the B-band region of the UV-vis spectrum of PcZn, while hybrid exchange-correlation functionals predict only five 1Eu states for the same energy envelope. The first two symmetry-forbidden n-->pi* transitions were predicted in the Q0-2 region and in the low-energy tail of the B-band, while the first two symmetry-allowed n-->pi* transitions were found within the B-band energy envelope when pure exchange-correlation functionals were used for TDDFT calculations. The presence of a symmetry-forbidden but vibronically allowed n-->pi* transition in the Q0-2 spectral envelope explains the long-time controversy between the experimentally observed low-intensity transition in the Q0-2 region and previous semiempirical and TDDFT calculations, which were unable to predict any electronic transitions in this area. To prove the conceptual possibility of the presence of several degenerate 1Eu states in the B-band region of PcZn, room-temperature UV-vis and MCD spectra of zinc tetra-tert-butylphthalocyanine (PctZn) in non-coordinating solvents were recorded and analyzed using band deconvolution analysis. It was found that the B-band region of the UV-vis and MCD spectra of PctZn can be easily deconvoluted using six MCD Faraday A-terms and two MCD Faraday B-terms with energies close to those predicted by TDDFT calculations for 1Eu and 1A2u excited states, respectively. Such a good agreement between theory and experiment clearly indicates the possibility of employing a TDDFT approach for the accurate prediction of vertical excitation energies in phthalocyanines within a large energy range.