Real Chemistry #5 Solid State Carbon Monoxide Release

Welcome to my world of chemistry.
I’m starting this series of pictures of my work captured with my phone. All these photos I own and I have not shared them anywhere else but here.

In this episode of Real Chemistry I want to share with you one of my Rhenium carbonyl complexes!

As you can see, when light is shined to the crystals they release carbon monoxide.
In our research, carbon monoxide (CO) is able to kill certain cancer cells selectively over normal cells!

The problem with CO therapy is its delivery to the tissue in a controlled fashion. This is why we make metal complexes that are able to release CO using an external trigger (in this case light).

There is more about it in my recent publication which is available on the web.

Also this picture is interesting because it kinda looks like you are looking into deep space.

The crystals are a red color and were used to identify the structure of the complex.
They are dipped in paratone oil which trapped the CO gas bubbles as they evolved from the crystal.

This picture was taken with my phone while looking through a microscope.

Cheers!