Front Cover: From a Metastable Layer to a Stable Ring: A Kinetic Study for Transformation Reactions of Li₂Mo₃TeO₁₂ to Polyoxometalates (Chem. Eur. J. 26/2018)

Abstract

A metastable layered tellurite (Li2Mo3TeO12) in an extremely strained environment has been synthesized. Li+‐exchange‐driven transformation reactions of Li2Mo3TeO12 to polyoxometalates have been successfully monitored by simple lab‐source X‐ray diffraction. Through the obtained kinetic data, a plausible mechanism for the solid‐state transformation reactions has been suggested. This new finding could be utilized in discovering novel metastable materials and their phase transitions. More information can be found in the Communication by K. M. Ok et al. on page 6712.

Li6M(SeO3)4 (M = Co, Ni, and Cd) and Li2Zn(SeO3)2: Selenites with Late Transition-Metal Cations

“…Exploring novel functional materials has been one of the most important tasks to synthetic chemists. − Among many, main-group metal cations such as Pb 2+ , Sb 3+ , Bi 3+ , I 5+ , etc. have attracted gigantic interest attributable to the asymmetric environment that is arising from the stereochemically active lone pair (SCALP) electrons. − Especially, a number of metal oxides and oxyhalides containing Se 4+ have been newly discovered. − Selenites with SCALP have revealed unique characteristics such as antiferromagnetic property, − selective ion-exchange, multiferroicity, and nonlinear optical properties. − Selenite compounds have also exhibited diverse structural moieties such as open frameworks and variable dimensional structures . Among abundant structural variations, the centricity change has been significantly influenced by a variety of metal cations attributed to the cation size effect. − Thus far, a few lithium transition-metal selenites have been reported.…”