The ten-day visit of Prof. Davide Proserpio (University of Milan, Italy) to Samara relates to two areas of scientific cooperation: first, it continues the work on the kinetic 3D partition model and its use in modeling crystal growth, second, the discussion of the project on the research and design of metal-organic frameworks.
From February 11 to 15 the collaboration with the guests from the University of Manchester Professor Michael Anderson and his PhD student Adam Hill proceeded. Thanks to Professor Davide Proserpio, who met Professor Michael Anderson in 2015 at a conference in Vietnam, a joint research was started, which led to the publication in Nature (2017). Now, as Prof.Vladislav Blatov says, Prof.D. Proserpio continues to play the role of a link or even a translator – helping to adjust the language that our colleagues from Manchester use when modeling crystal growth to the concepts that are used in the ToposPro software. The next step of scientific cooperation is the improvement and development of Prof. M. Anderson’s program and its expansion to any crystals, a further development of this method of crystal simulation and its application to new classes of substances.
Prof. Davide Proserpio’s business trip will last until February 20, and at this time he plans to discuss joint research on coordination polymers and metal-organic frameworks. The works are being performed within a RFBR grant with the head of the Laboratory for the synthesis of new crystalline materials Dr. Evgeny Alexandrov and laboratory assistant Ekaterina Vaganova on systematization and prediction of weavings in polymeric structures with the topology of the hexagonal net, the topological type of strontium silicide, and the primitive cubic lattice. This project also involves collaboration with Prof. Michael O’Keeffe from the Arizona State University (USA). New directions on the synthesis of coordination polymers are discussed, and Eugeny plans to develop them within his forthcoming visit to the University of Milan.