The Annual Meeting of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Berlin was a clear reminder that scientific exchange is one of the most effective tools we have for building the future. I even had a chat with President Steinmeier. #AvHConnectedForImpact #Humboldt #ScienceDiplomacy #ResearchInGermany

Yoshio Barrera introduces oxide ion affinity (OIA) as a metric for double Lewis acidity in geminal dications. Strong linear correlations with fluoride ion affinities enable direct scale conversion. OIA predicts oxophilicity in diphosphonium dications. www.cell.com/cell-reports...

Gauging the double Lewis acidity of dicationic molecules with oxide and fluoride ion affinities

Barrera et al. introduce oxide ion affinity (OIA) as a metric for double Lewis acidity in geminal dications. Strong linear correlations with fluoride ion affinities enable direct scale conversion. OIA...

cell.com

What an honour! I just got wind that I received the award of the Dr. Otto Röhm Gedächtnisstiftung for outstanding young chemists. Thanks so much to the group for your hard work and congratulations to the other awardees!

I had the great honour to give a talk on our work on carbodications in Göttingen! What a prestigious place with lots of exciting chemistry going on. I loved the connections between organic, physical, and inorganic chemistry.

We are looking forward to working with this new shiny metal labmate! #glovebox #chemistry #cations

The hunt is on, but the tools are lacking: exciting main group dications were recently isolated and more will come. Yoshio explored in our preprint hot off the press the use of oxide ion affinities to measure double Lewis acidity of dications! Preprint on ChemRxiv: doi.org/10.26434/che...

Great to have Florian Mulks @ffmulks.bsky.social from RWTH Aachen @rwth.bsky.social at our colloquium yesterday! His talk on dicarbocations was truly positive 😁. Thanks for the inspiring science and the lovely dinner afterwards! @werzlab.bsky.social

I taught the first lecture of chemistry to our new class of medicine students at @rwth.bsky.social yesterday! What an exhilarating feeling to teach such a large group of bright people whose interests extend well beyond the scope of their future profession. Good luck with your studies!

Check this fantastic chance out if you are looking for a postdoc!

RWTH Aachen University@rwth.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Join our MSCA Masterclass (May 4 to 8, 2026) in Aachen and refine your MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship proposal 💯 All travel and accommodation costs are fully covered by RWTH, the application deadline is November 30, 2025. 📅 ➡️ www.rwth-aachen.de/go/id/bqedgo... 📸: Martin Braun

Join our MSCA Masterclass (May 4 to 8, 2026) in Aachen and refine your MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship proposal 💯 All travel and accommodation costs are fully covered by RWTH, the application deadline is November 30, 2025. 📅 ➡️ www.rwth-aachen.de/go/id/bqedgo... 📸: Martin Braun

Postdoc Dreamers! Aiming for a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship at a top European institution? Join the RWTH Aachen MSCA Masterclass 2026! 🔗 Details & Apply: www.rwth-aachen.de/cms/root/for... #MSCA #Postdoc #Research #RWTH #Science #AcademicSky #EUFunding #Chemistry #Catalysis

Oh, how nice! Our inaugural (very cool) work on carbodications has garnered enough citations to be the first fully independent paper earning an h-index point for me! chemistry-europe.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Diiminium Nucleophile Adducts Are Stable and Convenient Strong Lewis Acids**

Diiminium nucleophile adducts, convenient Lewis acids that satisfy some measures for superacidity, have been synthesised by coordination with stabilising pyridine donors. Even in their abstraction of...

chemistry-europe.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

We noticed a surprising lack of data on absolutely fundamental C1 molecules. We computed a useful collection of thermodynamic data (BDE, EA, IP, HA) at the CCSD(T)/aug-cc-pVQZ level of theory to fill this gap. Early view at J. Phys. Chem. A: pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

Bond Dissociation Energies, Proton, Hydride, Electron Affinities, and Ionization Potentials of C1 Hydrocarbon Ions

Carbon and hydrocarbons are fundamental building blocks of life. Here, we present a comprehensive computational study on the stability and reactivity of CHx±n (X = 0, 1, 2, 3, 4) species across charge states n ranging from −4 to +4 and multiplicities from singlet to quintet. We benchmark suitable methods and select CCSD(T)/aug-cc-pVQZ for computing the bond dissociation energies (BDEs), proton affinities (PAs), hydride affinities (HAs), electron affinities (EAs), and ionization potentials (IPs). We discuss observed trends in charge-dependent stability and reactivity, with implications for a fundamental understanding of carbon–hydrogen species. We believe that these data will be useful for further investigations of highly reactive hydrocarbons in unusual electronic states.

pubs.acs.org

Check out our recent adventure in making simple tools for rationalizing broad chemical reactivity. The math may look a bit scary but the application is as straightforward as it gets with any standard DFT tools. Now in early view: lnkd.in/eEnzKvuQ

Our work was the core foundation for some exciting application studies — reductions of carbodications with hydride donors! — which sadly slipped past the peer-review @angewandtechemie.bsky.social . Thanks for the collaboration by the authors in fixing this. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Corrrection to “1,4‐Dearomatization of Pyridines and Quinolines Enabled by the Carbodication Lewis Acid”

Click on the article title to read more.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Just accepted: Benjamin's deep dive into the "π-Electron Donation at the Sulfoximidoyl Nitrogen Atom". Pre-editing version: doi.org/10.1002/anie... Happy to contribute to this mechanistic study in a collaboration with Carsten Bolm.

π‐Electron Donation at the Sulfoximidoyl Nitrogen Atom

Knowledge of the physicochemical properties and the reactivity of functional groups is invaluable in organic chemistry. While substantial understanding of properties/reactivities exists for standard ...

doi.org

Our minireview on trityl cation applications hot off the press @synthesis1969.bsky.social — carbocations are just getting started! Check it out at: doi.org/10.1055/a-25...

Synthesis Journal@synthesis1969.bsky.social · last yr.

Crystalline perfluorinated #trityl cations are finally isolated, sparking a resurgence in their use 💎 Read the review of Gong and Mulks @ffmulks.bsky.social on these versatile #Lewisacids driving innovation in organic synthesis #Carbocation 👉 buff.ly/yiM1qrU

Check out Yoshio's preview article "Strained diradicaloids for σ-bond-insertion reactions: A breakthrough in drug discovery" in Chem @CellCellPress authors.elsevier.com/a/1knqg8jWHE... We highlight Houk and Garg's exciting paper in print at Nature. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Check out Yoshio's preview article "Strained diradicaloids for σ-bond-insertion reactions: A breakthrough in drug discovery" in Chem @CellCellPress authors.elsevier.com/a/1knqg8jWHE... We highlight Houk and Garg's exciting paper in print at Nature. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Congratulations to Yanick @thetimebreaker.bsky.social on the discovery of a direct access to "electron-rich" triphenylcarbenium triflates via a Friedel Crafts cascade from carboxylic acids and arenes. The paper was just accepted in EurJIC: chemistry-europe.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

One‐Step Synthesis of Donor‐Substituted Symmetric and Unsymmetric Trityl Cations from Arenes and Benzoic Acids

In this study, we report that reacting electron-rich arenes and benzoic acids with trifluoromethanesulfonic anhydride gives convenient one-step and one-pot access to triphenylmethylium trifluorometha...

chemistry-europe.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Organic Lewis acids are picking up traction! Check out Yiwei's update short review Recent Applications of Triphenylmethyl (Trityl) Cations in Synthesis doi.org/10.1055/a-25...

Recent Applications of Triphenylmethyl (Trityl) Cations in Synthesis

Thieme E-Books & E-Journals

doi.org

New year, new group website: mulksgrp.ac/post/website... Check it out. Thanks to our student assistant for the excellent work. We mainly improve its functionality to make it a more active space for sharing ideas and useful tutorials. See you there!

News | mulksgrp

mulksgrp at RWTH Aachen

mulksgrp.ac

Yoshio from UNAM Mexico joins the group at @rwth.bsky.social as our first postdoc! Congratulations on the fellowship and we are excited to investigate reactions and reactivity descriptors with you!

An early Christmas present! Yiwei's update on the latest from triphenylcarbenium chemistry with a focus on applications in synthesis was published as "accepted manuscript" at Synthesis. www.thieme-connect.com/products/ejo... Thanks to Martin Oestreich for the invitation and fantastic process!

Big day for the group with Yanick being the first to finish a master thesis. Well done! #proudPi @RWTH The nice trityl structures may have something to do with it, stay tuned.

Have you ever wondered if there is a better intuitive way of understanding ambident reactivity than HSAB or orbital vs. charge-control? Kindly refer to "Hard and Soft Electrons and Holes" that is in press at Chem by Cell Press. doi.org/10.1016/j.ch...

Our last visitor at the seminar of the Institute of Organic Chemistry of RWTH Aachen University did not have to travel far. Florian Kleemiß of the Institute of Inorganic Chemistry taught us on quantum crystallography and its uses in the investigation of chemical bonding. A very useful method!

Our coordinated gem-carbodicarbene surrogate diiminium adducts were highlighted in the organic chemistry trend report in Nachrichten aus der Chemie! That is an exciting first for us. Thank you for the honour to Urs Gellrich. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

We had the please to listen to Sebastian Riedel exciting adventures in the (surprisingly applicable!) generation of halonium ions, storage of chlorine, and more. Thanks a lot for your visit at the RWTH and for the valuable discussions and advice!

I am honoured to be included in the impressive list of Thieme Chemistry Journals Award winners! Thank you for the recognition of our early independent work, which is driving us forward this year. www.thieme.de/en/thieme-ch...