Conveners
Session: AIC and SILS Awards
- Cinzia Giannini (CNR - Istituto di Cristallografia)
- Angela Altomare (CNR - Istituto di Cristallografia)
The ever-increasing attention on environmental problems and sustainability has highlighted several issues related to the use of conventional pesticides in the agricultural industry and the use of more effective food preservatives for the development of active packaging against food waste. In the search for natural antimicrobial and insecticide alternatives, essential oils and their active...
The chemistry of metal phosphonates has a long history, started in 1978 when the first examples of zirconium phosphonates were reported [1]. From the structural point of view, metal phosphonates often adopt dense layered or pillared-layered arrangements, with the organic moieties residing in the interlayer region, hardly accessible to potential guest species. In fact, most metal phosphonates...
The removal of contaminants from air and aquatic systems must be a priority research topic to re-establish ecosystem balance and secure a more sustainable future. In this context metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) have revealed them as excellent platforms for the removal of harmful species from both air and water. MOFs show great potential for applications in the area of environmental...
For many years, cryo-electron microscopy (Cryo-EM) was used only to determine low-resolution density maps of large proteins structure. However, thanks to recent technological developments, the resolution achievable with Cryo-EM reaches the same values as those obtained with X-Ray crystallography. Moreover, Cryo-EM can study flexible and functionally active macromolecules, which are impossible...
The mineralogy of secondary assemblages deriving from the alteration of pyrite ore deposits from the southern sector of the Apuan Alps (Tuscany, Italy) has been investigated. Twenty-five mineral species have been identified so far; among them, eight, showing interesting crystal-chemical features, were fully characterized using X-ray diffraction, chemical analyses, and spectroscopic techniques...
The aim of this study is the crystal chemical description of arsenates and vanadates of the brackebuschite supergroup, belonging to Valletta mine, in Canosio municipality (CN), Piedmont, Italy, through structure and composition determination.
The Valletta mine is type locality of three new species of the brackebuschite supergroup: canosioite $Ba_2Fe^{3+}(AsO_4)_2(OH)$, grandaite...
Natural borates are minerals of relevant economic interest, as they represent the main source of boron (i.e. since 2014, in the Critical Raw Material list for the Europe’s economy). The peculiar properties of boron opened several routes of applications in a large variety of industrial sectors, including glass, ceramics, electronics, metallurgy, textile, cosmetics and chemistry [1]. Moreover,...
D–glucose ($C_6H_{12}O_6$) is a strategic chemical for the agri-food and pharmaceutical industries, with a market that is expected to grow in next years. Two anhydrous $P2_12_12_1$ crystal forms, differing in the anomeric ($\alpha / \beta$) configuration, plus one hydrated form, are known to date [1]. Due to the presence of a high number of –OH groups with almost null rotational barriers, many...
In the last decades the extracellular matrix (ECM) has aroused growing interest thanks to its pivotal bio-physical interaction with cells, modelling the structure and function of tissues in relation to physiologic and pathologic stimuli. It is a complex fibrous network made by different components, but the main fibril-forming protein is type I collagen. Thanks to its tissue-specific...
Cancer is the first or second leading cause of premature deaths worldwide with an overall rapidly growing burden [1]. Standard cancer therapies include surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy (RT) and often a combination of the three is applied to improve the probability of tumour control. Follow up techniques, able to monitor and investigate the effects of therapies, are important for...
