Polyoxometalates and Polyoxometalate-Based Systems

Dear Colleagues,

Polyoxometalates are a class of molecules that have fascinated researchers for decades. Despite being first described centuries ago, this type of anionic metal–oxygen clusters continues to represent a highly vibrant research domain because of their unmatched collection of versatile properties. The vast polyoxometalate family encompasses molecular species with very diverse sizes (from small dimetalates to clusters comparable to small proteins) and manifold structures (often with highly symmetric topologies) that tend to show rich solution equilibria, significant chemical and thermal stability, and the ability to act as proton–electron sinks thanks to their fast and reversible proton-coupled redox processes. These properties can usually be fine-tuned at the atomic level through systematic compositional modifications performed in the cluster skeleton. Moreover, the possibility of generating vacant metallic sites in a controlled manner allows polyoxometalates to be used as robust, fully-inorganic polydentate ligands toward a range of electrophilic moieties (e.g., transition-metal cations, rare earths, p-block organoderivatives, etc.), thus paving the way for endowing the clusters with tailored additional properties brought by such electrophiles. The combination of all these features confers an intrinsic multifunctional nature on polyoxometalates that places these clusters at the frontier between an exceptionally wide range of scientific disciplines, such as inorganic chemistry, physics, crystallography, catalysis, biology or medicine. As such, they offer virtually endless options for future applied developments in these areas, and hence, they are continuously selected as the active molecule of choice for constructing new advanced materials upon integration with, for example, polymers, oxides, or carbonaceous supports. This Special Issue is intended to focus on the most recent advances in polyoxometalate chemistry and polyoxometalate-based systems by covering different aspects from fundamentals (synthetic methods, reactivity, spectroscopic or spectrometric studies, structures, mechanistic insights) to potential applications (redox and acid-base catalysis, photo- and electrochemistry, magnetism, electronics, optics, bio-medicine, energy conversion and storage, sorption and separation, environmental remediation). Full papers, communications, and reviews on these topics are welcome.

Dr. Santiago Reinoso
Guest Editor

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