Rodriguez-Molina Group
Fluorescent materials
Crystalline molecular machines
Reticular solids
Our work is based on the design and synthesis of crystalline materials with synergistic solid-state properties, like intramolecular motion, fluorescence, gas sorption, and more. We construct such tailored materials and measure the properties utilizing solid-state NMR, VT X-ray crystallography, hot-stage microscopy, and thermal analyses, among other advanced techniques.
News and recent events
A 4-year effort paying its dividends
PhD is certainly a confusing and highly challenging time for every person in the path of becoming a PI. Nonetheless, when hard work, talent, and great comunication between mentor and student is stablished, the result is an integral formation of a new scientist. This is how we could describe the journey of our college, mentor and friend Abraham Colin Molina through Molina Group.
Thus, we were absolutely delighted to learn that Sociedad Química de México awarded the 'Rafael Illescas Frisbie' medal for the best PhD thesis in its 2022 Prize Edition. Abraham presented his dissertation in January 2021, for which he was also awarded Honorable mention and nomination for 'Alfonso Caso' medal.
Abraham joined Molina Group in 2016 to start his Masters' degree. Later, in 2018, he started his PhD program, which finished in early 2021. His remarkable effort is displayed in five first-author manuscripts, herein presented:
a) Colin-Molina, A.; Rodríguez-Molina, B.; Chem. Sci. 2019, 10, 4422.
b) Colin-Molina, A.; Rodríguez-Molina, B.; CrystEngComm 2020, 22, 3789.
c) Colin-Molina, A.; Rodríguez-Molina, B; Matter 2019, 1, 1033.
d) Colin-Molina, A.; Rodríguez-Molina, B.; Chem. Eur. J. 2020, 26, 11727.
e) Colin-Molina, A.; Rodríguez-Molina, B.; Cryst. Growth Des. 2022, 22, 673.
Currently, he is a post-doctoral associate at CEMS, University of Minnesota under the supervision of Prof. C. Daniel Frisbie. His teaching and mentoring is a key part of what Molina Group is today.
Big shout-outs to Abraham and congratulations to both him and Braulio.
Dual Emission compounds taking over!
In a remarkable team effort, we are delighted to present our latest contribution on the Dual State Emitters field: "Asymmetric Dual-State Emitters Featuring Thiazole Acceptors", recently published in European Journal of Organic Chemistry.
Jose Luis Belmonte, our posdoctoral researcher and a brilliant synthetic chemist, included a thiazole core into highly conjugated molecules. As a result, the twisting of aromatic rings, inclusion of aliphatic chains, and D-A-D connectivity between fragments, produced four new molecules with high quantum yields both in solution and in the solid state. Our current MSc. Student Ernesto Hernández, alonside Dr. Carmen García, were key to this work by helping in the synthesis of the compounds and the obtaining of the crystalline solids.
The expertise of Dr. Luis Demetrio Miranda in total synthesis of organic compounds and his ideas on the inclusion of thiazole rings were a central part of the main idea of this manuscript.
Also, we were happy to collaborate with the brilliant Dr. Rachel Crespo-Otero and her posdoctoral researcher Dr. Federico Hernández. Their expertise on the explaining of the photophysical features through theoretical modelling of the synthesized molecules led us to provide an explanaition for the displaying of the Dual-State phenomena.
Please, feel free to take a look at our manuscript, which we are happy to announce is Open Access!
Belmonte-Vázquez, J. L., Hernández-Morales, E. A., Hernández, F., García-González, M. C., Miranda, L. D., Crespo-Otero, R., Rodríguez-Molina, B., Eur. J. Org. Chem., 2022, e202200372
Alfonso Caso back again at Molina-Group!
We are honoured to congratulate Dr. Andrés Aguilar Granda and his former advisor, Dr. Braulio Rodríguez Molina, on winning the distinguished award "Medalla Alfonso Caso", for his outstanding academic performance during his PhD program.
Dr. Aguilar finished his PhD in 2018 with honours after defending the thesis entitled "Synthesis and characterization of the solid-state molecular dynamics of conjugated compounds with carbazole-pi-carbazole architechture".
The principal results of his doctoral thesis were published in three manuscripts:
a) Aguilar-Granda, A., Pérez-Estrada, S., Roa, A. E., Rodríguez-Hernández, J., Hernández-Ortega, S., Rodríguez, M., Rodríguez-Molina, B., Cryst. Growth Des., 2016, 16, 3435.
b) Aguilar-Granda, A., Pérez-Estrada, S., Sánchez-González, E., Álvarez, J. R., Rodríguez-Hernández, J., Rodríguez, M., Roa, A. E., Hernández-Ortega, S., Ibarra, I. A., Rodríguez-Molina, B., J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2017, 139, 7549.
c) Aguilar-Granda, A., García-González, M. C., Pérez-Estrada, S., Kozina, A., Rodríguez-Molina, B., J. Phys. Chem. C, 2018, 122, 27093.
After finishing his PhD, he did a two-year posctoctoral stay at University of Toronto (Toronto, ON) in the group of Dr. Alan Aspuru-Guzik.
Nowadays, he carries out his independent research at Faculty of Chemistry, UNAM, Mexico, as member of the Department of Organic Chemistry.
We are so glad and proud of you, Andres! Way to go!
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