An authoritative up-to-date summary of the chemistry and applications of polyoxometalates with emphasis on new synthetic strategies directed towards functionalized organic derivatives, self-assembly of mesoscopic composite polyoxoanions, generation of framework materials and thin oxide films, extended optical, magnetic, and electrical properties, applications in homogeneous and nanocluster-based catalysts, photocatalytic water decontamination, ribosomal crystallography, and topological aspects of large symmetrical structures.

An authoritative up-to-date summary of the chemistry and applications of polyoxometalates with emphasis on new synthetic strategies directed towards functionalized organic derivatives, self-assembly of mesoscopic composite polyoxoanions, generation of framework materials and thin oxide films, extended optical, magnetic, and electrical properties, applications in homogeneous and nanocluster-based catalysts, photocatalytic water decontamination, ribosomal crystallography, and topological aspects of large symmetrical structures.

MICHAEL T. POPE AND ACHIM MULLER Department of Chemistry, Georgetown University, Washington, DC 20057-2222, U.S.A.; Department of Chemistry, University of Bielefeld, D-4BOO Bielefeld 1, F.R.G. Polyoxometalates, from their discovery and early development in the final decades of the 19th century to their current significance in disciplines as diverse as chemistry, mathematics, and medicine, continue to display surprisingly novel structures, unexpected reactivities and applications, and to attract increasing attention worldwide. Most of the contributors to the present volume participated in the...

Combined oxygen, in the form of water, metal oxides, silicates and other oxyions, accounts for about 50% by weight of the earth's crust. The chemistry of this most abundant element has two major aspects: that of water and aqueous solutions of electrolytes, and that of the solid state. The methodology and techniques appropriate for the study of these fields are sufficiently different that there have been very few points of contact between solution- and solid state chemists. One such contact, of great potential value, is provided by the extensive class of polyoxoanions formed by the transition...

Polyoxometalates are discrete early transition metal-oxide cluster anions and comprise a class of inorganic complexes of unrivaled versatility and structural variation in both symmetry and size, with applications in many fields of science. Recent findings of both electron-transfer processes and magnetic exchange-interactions in polyoxometalates with increasing nuclearities, topologies, and dimensionalities, and with combinations of different magnetic metal ions and/or organic moieties in the same lattice attract strong attention towards the design of nano-composites, since the assemblies of...