‘‘Inorganic and Organometallic Clusters and Polymers:Syntheses and Applications’’ Symposium

This 3-day symposium was organized by Pierre D. Harvey,

Universite de Sherbrooke, and Alaa S. Abd-El-Aziz,

University of Winnipeg, and was held in London, Ontario,

Canada, May 29th to June 1st, 2004 on the occasion of the

87th Canadian Institute of Chemistry Meeting. The sympo-

sium attracted 27 top scientists from all over the world as

invited speakers. Two special issues were also published in

Macromolecular Symposia (Volume 209, pages 1–251,

2004), and in the Journal of Cluster Science (JCS, Volume

15, Number 2, pages 61–261, 2004). These issues appeared

at the same time as the conference.

The symposium started with a brief introduction from

Pierre D. Harvey explaining the purposes of the conference.

He focused on the importance and opportunities of both

communities to interact and benefit from each other on

scientific grounds. This new strategy will help scientists

meet the challenges of modern problems and needs. Colla-

borations and exchange of ideas should issue from such an

original symposium, en route towards new materials and

unusual properties. The program consisted of a plenary

lecture, invited lectures and a poster session.

The first session focused on organometallic polymers

and dendrimers. The speakers were Alaa S. Abd-El-Aziz,

‘‘Synthesis of Iron-Containing Polymers with Azo Dyes in

the Backbones or Side Chains’’ (Canada), David R. Tyler,

‘‘Photochemically Degradable Polymers Containing Metal-

Metal Bonds along their Backbones; The Effect of Stress on

the Rates of Photochemical Degradation’’ (USA), Ikuyoshi

Tomita, ‘‘Synthesis and Applications of Polymers Contain-

ing Metallacyclopentadiene Moieties in the Main Chain’’

(Japan), Kimihisa Yamamoto, ‘‘Fine Control of Metal

Assembling in Novel Phenylazomethine Dendrimers’’

(Japan), Ashok K. Kakkar, ‘‘Metallodendritic Materials

for Heterogenized Homogeneous Catalysis’’ (Canada), and

Tara J. Burchell, student from Richard Puddephatt’s

group, ‘‘Self-Assembly of Coordination Polymers and the

Formation of Extended Networks through Secondary

Interactions’’ (Canada).

The second session focused on chalcogenide-containing

clusters. The speakers were Joachim Wachter, ‘‘Metal

Telluride Clusters – From Small Molecules to Polyhedral

Structures’’ (Germany), Minguey M. Shieh, ‘‘Chalcogen-

Containing Manganese Carbonyl Clusters: Synthesis and

Structural Transformations’’ (Taiwan), Pradeep Mathur,

‘‘Some Reactions of Acetylenic Systems with Mixed-Metal

Carbonyls’’ (India), and Andreas Eichhoefer, ‘‘Metal Chal-

cogenide Cluster Molecules’’ (Germany).

The third session exhibited a wide range of topics ranging

from bio-related polymers to materials and surface science.

The speakers were Ian Manners, ‘‘Synthesis and Properties

and Applications of Highly Metallized Cluster-Based

Polymers’’ (Canada), Hiroshi Nishihara, ‘‘Bottom-Up Fab-

rication of Bis(terpyridine)metal Polymer Chains at Gold

Surface and their Electron-Transfer Process’’ (Japan),

Heinz-Berhard Kraatz, ‘‘Hydrogen-Bonded Peptides on

Surfaces’’ (Canada), Mark G. Humphrey, ‘‘Towards Oligo-

clusters – Chemistry and Properties’’ (Australia), Mitsu-

hoko Shionoya, ‘‘Artificial Metallo-DNA towards Discrete

Metal Arrays’’ (Japan), and Boon K. Teo (given by his

student X. H. Sun), ‘‘Zero-Dimensional Nanodots on One-

Dimensional Nanowires: Reductive Deposition of Metal

Nanoparticles on Silicon Nanowires’’ (USA).

Conference Reports: This section contains reports ontopical conferences. Reports are usually written at the requestof the editorial office, but unsolicited contributions are also

welcome. Suggestions should be sent to the editorial office ofthe Macromolecular journals, preferably by E-mail tomacromol@wiley-vch.de.

Macromol. Chem. Phys. 2004, 205, 1965–1966 DOI: 10.1002/macp.200400322 � 2004 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

Conference Report 1965

Figure 1. A picture of some of the invited speakers.

The fourth session consisted of various topics, including

metal-containing polymers, supramolecular arrangements,

magnetism and electric conductivity. The speakers were

Robert C. Thompson, ‘‘Structure and Magnetism in Coor-

dination Polymers Incorporating Pyridinedicarboxylate

Bridging Ligands’’ (Canada), A. C. W. Leung (student

from Mark J. MacLachlan’s group), ‘‘Conjugated Metallo-

polymers’’ (Canada), Stuart L. James, ‘‘Metal-Containing

Rings, Cages and Nanoporous Polymers Based on Bridging

Phosphines’’ (Ireland), and Zhiping Zheng, ‘‘Supramole-

cular Arrays of Transition Metal Clusters by Design’’

(USA). The session ended with two award lectures. The first

one was presented by Martin Cowie, winner of the Alcan

Award (2003). His lecture was entitled ‘‘Roles of the Adja-

cent Metals in Carbon-Carbon Bond Formation in Hetero-

binuclear Rh/Os, Rh/Rh and Ir/Ru Complexes.’’ (Canada).

The second Alcan Award Lecture was presented by the

winner of the 2004 award, Laurence K. Thompson, ‘‘From

Dinuclear to Triakontahexanuclear Complexes – Adven-

tures in Supramolecular Coordination Chemistry’’

(Canada).

The fifth session was dedicated to cluster chemistry. The

speakers were Arthur J. Carty, ‘‘The Remarkable Coordi-

nating Properties and Reactivity of Electrophilic Amino-

phosphinidene Ligands PNR2’’ (Canada), J. M. Parnis,

‘‘Niobium Cluster Reactions with Ethene: Experimental

and Theoretical Study of Product Mass Distributions as a

Probe of Cluster Reactivity Mechanisms’’ (Canada), Brian

F. G. Johnson, ‘‘Clusters and Nanoparticles in Catalysis’’

(England), Richard D. Adams, ‘‘New Platinum-Ruthenium

and -Rhodium Cluster Complexes: Structures, Molecular

Dynamics and Catalytic Activity’’ (USA), and Michael I.

Bruce, ‘‘Cluster-Capped Carbon Chains’’ (Australia). This

session closed with the Award for Pure or Applied Inorganic

Chemistry Lecture presented by Michael Wolf, ‘‘Metal-

Containing Conjugated Materials: Oligomers, Polymers

and Nanomaterials’’ (Canada).

The sixth session focused on various aspects of cluster

chemistry. The speakers were Michael Veith, ‘‘Siloxanes

and Aminosiloxanes: Rotation and Oscillation of Lithium

Cations in Crystals within Molecular Boxes’’ (Germany),

Laurence F. Dahl, ‘‘New Frontiers in the Preparation/

Stereochemistry of Nanosized Metal Carbonyl Clusters:

Structure-to-Synthesis Approach’’ (USA), Dominique

Lucas, senior researcher in Yves Mugnier’s group,

‘‘Reactivity of the Pd3(dppm)3CO2þ Cluster towards Orga-

nic Halides. Applications to Organic Electrosynthesis’’

(France), David H. Farrar, ‘‘Synthesis and Initial Cluster

Coordination Studies of Indolylphosphines’’ (Canada), and

John F. Corrigan, ‘‘New Silylated-Chalcogen Reagents for

Metal-Chalcogen Nanocluster Assembly’’ (Canada).

Pierre D. Harvey closed the symposium by thanking

speakers, chairs, participants and sponsors. He stressed the

importance of finding new ideas from each other special-

ities and collaborations.

Pierre D. Harvey

Universite de Sherbrooke

Alaa S. Abd-El-Aziz

University of Winnipeg

Figure 2. A picture at the poster session of Patrick Shipman,University of Winnipeg and Pierre D. Harvey, Universite deSherbrooke.

1966 Conference Report

Macromol. Chem. Phys. 2004, 205, 1965–1966 www.mcp-journal.de � 2004 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim