synthesised one of these polyhedra, a cuboctahedron, using a terpyridine-based ligand and 24 Zn2+ or Cd2+ ions. The large molecular sphere is 6nm in diameter and can transform into different octahedra when diluted.
The synthesis and characterization of these chemical polyhedra designed by Professor Javier De Mendoza’s team (ICIQ) has been published in Nature Communications.
Nature Communications, 10.1038/ncomms1793
The cadmium nanosphere (c) consists of an inorganic cadmium-nitrate-oxo-hydroxy hollow core (b) surrounded by an outer shell of twenty carboxylate ligands (a).