Crystallography in Africa

At present there are active crystallographers in only about 80 countries. The IUCr Executive Committee is keen to change this and promote crystallography globally and in particular in developing regions. The IUCr Crystallography in Africa initiative sets out to increase the number of African countries active in crystallography.

During IYCr2014 another project was mounted to build capacity in crystallography not only in Africa but also in Asia and Latin America. IUCr and UNESCO are running open laboratories (OpenLabs) in more than a dozen developing countries throughout the year in partnership with diffractometer manufacturers. These OpenLabs demonstrate how a diffractometer works to university students and their professors and particularly promote crystallography, which supports most scientific research today. Currently OpenLabs have taken place in Pakistan, Argentina, Morocco, Ghana, Cambodia, Uruguay, Indonesia and Turkey, with more scheduled for this year and with plans to continue the programme once IYCr2014 comes to an end.

See details of the forthcoming IYCr Pan African and South African Summit meeting on Crystallography taking place in Bloemfontein, South Africa between 12 and 17 October 2014.

A recent paper resulting in part from the initiative in Africa has been published in Acta Crystallographica Section B: Structural Science, Crystal Engineering and Materials entitled "Two-dimensionally stacked heterometallic layers hosting a discrete chair dodecameric ring of water clusters: synthesis and structural study" [Kenfack Tsobnang et al. (2014). Acta Cryst. B70, 900-902; doi:10.1107/S2052520614019921]. The crystallographers from Cameroon and France have characterized the self-assembly of ionic complexes built around an original water cluster.

Despite numerous research projects over the years, many of the properties of water are still misunderstood. Considering water is one of the simplest compounds in existence and so essential to life, it is fascinating and puzzling at the same time that so little is actually known about its behaviour and properties. The paper published by Patrice Kenfack Tsobnang and colleagues may provide further insight into some of the fascinating properties of water due to its infinite hydrogen-bonded network. This may help researchers understand some of the mystery that still exists in the behaviour of water in nature.