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    Control of coordinatively unsaturated Zr sites in ZrO2 for efficient C–H bond activation
    ([London] : Nature Publishing Group UK, 2018) Zhang, Yaoyuan; Zhao, Yun; Otroshchenko, Tatiana; Lund, Henrik; Pohl, Marga-Martina; Rodemerck, Uwe; Linke, David; Jiao, Haijun; Jiang, Guiyuan; Kondratenko, Evgenii V.
    Due to the complexity of heterogeneous catalysts, identification of active sites and the ways for their experimental design are not inherently straightforward but important for tailored catalyst preparation. The present study reveals the active sites for efficient C–H bond activation in C1–C4 alkanes over ZrO2 free of any metals or metal oxides usually catalysing this reaction. Quantum chemical calculations suggest that two Zr cations located at an oxygen vacancy are responsible for the homolytic C–H bond dissociation. This pathway differs from that reported for other metal oxides used for alkane activation, where metal cation and neighbouring lattice oxygen form the active site. The concentration of anion vacancies in ZrO2 can be controlled through adjusting the crystallite size. Accordingly designed ZrO2 shows industrially relevant activity and durability in non-oxidative propane dehydrogenation and performs superior to state-of-the-art catalysts possessing Pt, CrOx, GaOx or VOx species.
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    Single molecule magnet with an unpaired electron trapped between two lanthanide ions inside a fullerene
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2017) Liu, F.; Krylov, D.S.; Spree, L.; Avdoshenko, S.M.; Samoylova, N.A.; Rosenkranz, M.; Kostanyan, A.; Greber, T.; Wolter, A.U.B.; Büchner, B.; Popov, A.A.
    Increasing the temperature at which molecules behave as single-molecule magnets is a serious challenge in molecular magnetism. One of the ways to address this problem is to create the molecules with strongly coupled lanthanide ions. In this work, endohedral metallofullerenes Y 2 @C 80 and Dy 2 @C 80 are obtained in the form of air-stable benzyl monoadducts. Both feature an unpaired electron trapped between metal ions, thus forming a single-electron metal-metal bond. Giant exchange interactions between lanthanide ions and the unpaired electron result in single-molecule magnetism of Dy 2 @C 80 (CH 2 Ph) with a record-high 100 s blocking temperature of 18 K. All magnetic moments in Dy 2 @C 80 (CH 2 Ph) are parallel and couple ferromagnetically to form a single spin unit of 21 μ B with a dysprosium-electron exchange constant of 32 cm -1. The barrier of the magnetization reversal of 613 K is assigned to the state in which the spin of one Dy centre is flipped.