Soluble molybdenum blues - "des pudels kern"

The earlier tremendous interest in molybdenum blue solutions-an enigma for generations of chemists-became even more pronounced when it turned out that the basic building units correspond to giant wheel-shaped clusters with na nostructured cavities, displaying exceptional aesthetic beauty. This discov ery will stimulate new ideas in supramolecular chemistry, colloid chemistry , and materials science. The giant wheels represent nanosensors and nanorea ctors, enabling the initiation of chemical processes at different positions , like a "structured landscape", and can even be used as robust synthons fo r the construction of compounds with typical solid-state structure, a situa tion comparable to crystal engineering.