AVVISO DI CONFERENZA

Dr. GIULIO RAGAZZON

(Università di Padova, Dipartimento di Scienze Chimiche)

Molecular machines at equilibrium and away from it

Giulio Ragazzon,^a,b Serena Silvi,^a Alberto Credi^c,d

^a Dipartimento di Chimica “G. Ciamician”, Università di Bologna, via Selmi 2, 40126 Bologna

 ^b Present address: Dipartimento di Scienze Chimiche, Università di Padova, via Marzolo 1, 35131 Padova

 ^c Dipartimento di Scienze e Tecnologie Agro-alimentari, Università di Bologna, viale Fanin 50, 40127 Bologna

 ^d Istituto per la Sintesi Organica e la Fotoreattività, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, via Gobetti 101, 40127 Bologna.

giulio.ragazzon@unipd.it

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2016 has been awarded “for the design and synthesis of molecular machines”. Despite the incredible progresses of the field, several subjects still require substantial development. These include encoding functionality in simple structures, performing molecular tasks, implementing ratcheting mechanisms – that allow work to be performed – and developing autonomous systems, i.e., those operating away from equilibrium. In this talk, work aimed at tackling these challenges will be presented. In particular, spectroscopic and electrochemical techniques have been applied to the study of interlocked structures [1], functional rotaxanes [2] and pseudorotaxanes [3]. The most relevant achievement has been the direct observation of a light-driven self-assembling molecular pump operating under nonequilibrium conditions [3].

Figure 1. Top: a rotaxane in which reduction of the secondary station affords a change in pKa at the primary station, due to the ability of the ring to put the two stations in communication. Bottom: molecular components and minimal operation scheme of a light-driven self-assembling pump module.

References:

[1] (a) G. Ragazzon, A. Credi, B. Colasson, Chem. Eur. J., 2017, 23, 2149 – 2156; (b) P. Franchi, V. Bleve, E. Mezzanina, C. Schäfer, G. Ragazzon, M. Albertini, D. Carbonera, A. Credi, M. Di Valentin, M. Lucarini, Chem. Eur. J., 2016, 22, 8745 - 8750.

[2] (a) C. Schäfer, G. Ragazzon, B. Colasson, M. La Rosa, S. Silvi, A. Credi, ChemistryOpen, 2016, 5, 2, 120 – 124; (b) G. Ragazzon, C. Schäfer, P. Franchi, S. Silvi, B. Colasson, M Lucarini, A. Credi, Proc. Acad. Sci. U.S.A, 2018 accepted.  

[3] G. Ragazzon, M. Baroncini, S. Silvi, A. Credi, Nat. Nanotechnol., 2015, 10, 70 - 75.