Structure and Properties
of Hydrated Crystals

This project began with grants from the NSF SEGR program and the Kentucky Science and Engineering Foundation (KSEF) and involved a collaboration with the Grapperhaus group in 2004. Since then we have prepared and characterized hydrated organic and inorganic complexes containing different hydrated structures that display properties of biological and solid state interest. More recently, we published a study that evaluated the effect of surface water organization on conductivity. The remarkable feature of this system is the ability to tune conductivity by modulation of the occupancy of discrete surface water sites. These sites act as nucleation centers for the formation of linkages that transform isolated 1D water wires into conducting 2D water networks. This study demonstrates the utility of using the functional groups and packing of a small molecule to create imprinted elements on a surface for the bonding and organization of water or other small molecules. This approach allows systematic structure-function variation to modulate the identity and relative location of chemical functional groups to tailor the strength and selectivity of the interactions between the surface and the surface adsorbed water or other surface bound species. Representative and informative articles on our studies are listed below.