Enzymatic Synthesis and Surface Deposition of Tin Dioxide using Silicatein-α

Nanostructured tin dioxide was synthesized by making use of the catalytic activity of silicatein-α. TEM, HRTEM, and XRD revealed the formation of cassiterite SnO₂. Surface bound silicatein retains its biocatalytic activity. This was demonstrated by immobilizing silicatein on glass surfaces using a histidine-tag chelating anchor. The subsequent deposition of SnO₂ on glass was monitored by quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) measurements and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). This new aspect of silicatein activity toward the formation of metal oxides other than SiO₂, TiO₂, and BaTiO₃ opens up new vistas in composite material synthesis

Statistical Analysis of Coordination Environments in Oxides

Coordination or local environments (e.g., tetrahedra and octahedra) are powerful descriptors of the crystalline structure of materials. These structural descriptors are essential to the understanding of crystal chemistry and the design of new materials. However, extensive statistics on the occurrence of local environment are not available even on common chemistries such as oxides. Here, we present the first large-scale statistical analysis of the coordination environments of cations in oxides using a large set of experimentally observed compounds (about 8000). Using a newly developed method, we provide the distribution of local environment for each cation in oxides. We discuss our results highlighting previously known trends and unexpected coordination environments, as well as compounds presenting very rare coordinations. Our work complements the know-how of the solid state chemist with a statistically sound analysis and paves the way for further data mining efforts linking, for instance, coordination environments to materials properties