15 of the Hottest Research Topics in Chemistry

Virtual Collections include Virtual Issues, Special Issues and Thematic Collections of chemistry research from ACS journals. These collections reflect topics of current scientific interest and are designed for experienced investigators and chemistry educators alike.

Below are our most recent collections from April 2015 to June 2015.

The community at large recognizes the need to push new advances in battery science and technology by building on current successes due to fast flow of information that has become more accessible. This virtual issue is a compilation of articles that address new directions in relevant areas and have appeared in three different ACS journals: ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces, Chemistry of Materials, and The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters. The selection of articles reflects a combination of what is seen as impactful, opening up new directions, or providing deep and important insights. Read More

The worlds of biological and synthetic chemistry both offer incredible diversity. In this ACS Select Virtual Issue, we highlight some of the recent advances in bioconjugation chemistry. These publications describe new strategies for functionalization of biomacromolecules, as well as the use of synthetic molecules as building blocks for assembly using biological machinery. The resultant conjugate systems have new and exciting properties, as demonstrated in new therapeutic and imaging applications. Read More

The organizers of two symposia in the “Residues in Food and Feed” topic area held at the 13th IUPAC International Congress of Pesticide Chemistry introduce the papers that were contributed to this special section in the Journal. The symposia were titled “Taking Advantage of Advanced Analytical Tools” and “Going from Macro to Micro: The Future of Sample Processing in Residue Analytical Methods”. The oral and poster sessions generated much interest and discussion among the attendees, and some highlights are described in this introductory paper. Read More

The study of inorganic chemistry has had remarkable technological advances in pulsed-laser instrumentation and computation. In this special issue, an overview of research is geared toward understanding the dynamics and mechanisms through which inorganic molecules absorb and dissipate radiant energy is presented. Guest edited by James McCusker and Antonin Vlček, this special issue reveals the importance of this area of research from its origins in fundamental science to applications in topics ranging from solar energy conversion to biophysics and quantum control. Read More

The papers discussed in this virtual issue include examples that highlight the intimate relationship between photons and physical chemistry. The new advances in material synthesis with tailored optical properties and the ability to probe the optical effects with nanometer space resolution and subfemtosecond time resolution should lead to new discoveries in the coming decade especially in pursuits of efficient and sustainable systems for light energy conversion and storage. Read More

The central roles played by chemical processes and chemical properties in the earth’s climate system and its changes are captured in this figure. Emissions of chemicals into the atmosphere are one of the primary ways by which humans influence climate. This issue describes many of the current issues related to chemistry in earth’s climate and its changes. Read More

This virtual special issue honors the life and work of Dr. Mikhail Antipin, who led the X-ray Structural Center at the Institute of Organoelement Compounds. He published more than 1000 scientific papers and supervised 38 Ph.D. and Dr. Sci. projects during his distinguished career. His broad research interests included air-sensitive organometallics, structural studies of liquids, phosphororganics, mesogene crystals, pharmaceutical co-crystals, high-precision studies of electron density distributions, and thermal motion of atoms in crystals. Read More

This Special Issue on “Synthesis, Design and Molecular Function,” guest-edited by Paul Wender, is intended to explore the many exciting new advances and challenges associated with designing and making molecules in the 21st century. It features contributions from thought leaders in the field directed at new reactions, reagents and catalysts, process technologies and screening strategies, and their collective impact on the design and synthesis of molecules that exhibit function from materials to devices and from molecular probes to new medicines. Read More

In the last decade, computational catalysis has emerged as a key scientific field providing strong insights to experimentalists on the general concepts driving catalytic reactions and on design principles for novel or improved catalysts. Computational chemistry, hence, addresses all the topics of ACS Catalysis, provides unification principles, and has become a key tool for the catalytic scientist today. This special issue contains contributions showcasing theory and computation applied to an array of topics. Read More

This issue of JPC Letters includes five Viewpoint articles that provide different perspectives on the Open Access (OA) movement, with four articles concerned with OA publications and one with OA to software and data. The ideas and thoughts presented in these Viewpoints highlight the complexities of the issue, which is often poorly understood by authors and readers. Read More

This special issue contains contributed papers from the 15th International Conference on Petroleum Phase Behavior and Fouling (Petrophase 2014), a premier international conference, bringing together scientists and engineers to discuss the chemistry and properties of petroleum fluids and their effect on producing, processing, and refining in the upstream, midstream, and downstream industries. This conference is of great importance to the petroleum industry for improving processes that bring energy to the world. Read More

Mass spectrometry has undoubtedly boomed over the last two decades and has become a major analytical tool in many disciplines. The technique relies on the separation of ions of different m/z, and its success hinges on efficient ionization methods . This virtual issue pulls together publications from Analytical Chemistry that showcase the exemplary developments in ionization techniques. Read More

This Special Issue honors H. Scott Fogler of the University of Michigan on the occasion of his 75th birthday and his 50th year on the Michigan faculty. Dr. Fogler was recognized as a University of Colorado Distinguished Alumnus in 1988 and was named a Fellow of AIChE in 1994. He served as National President of AIChE in 2009 and received the Warren K. Lewis Award from AIChE in 1995 for his contributions to engineering education. He has been the recipient of 10 named lectureships and has delivered invited lectures in 25 countries worldwide. Read more

The papers in this special issue were originally presented at the 50th North American Chemical Residue Workshop (NACRW), formerly known as the Florida Pesticide Residue Workshop (FPRW). The 2013 meeting celebrated the rich history of 50 years of the FPRW and the birth of the NACRW, which in its name reflects the increased scope of the workshop to topics related to the analysis of all chemical residues and contaminants in food, feed, and environmental samples. Read More

The ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces editors have collaborated for this virtual issue to collect a set of what we consider to be exemplary articles dating from the first issues of the journal to the present time. Read More