Dr. Ran Drori

Dr. Ran Drori, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry, collaborated with Tamar Nicole Soussana ’21S (who is currently working in the lab of Dr. Josefa Steinhauer) and Dr. Haim Weissman and Dr. Boris Rybtchinski of the Department of Organic Chemistry at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel to publish “Adsorption-Inhibition of Clathrate Hydrates by Self-Assembled Nanostructures” in ChemPhysChem (2021, 22, 1 –9).The researchers found a new supramolecular inhibitor of clathrate hydrate crystals named safranine O (SFO). This inhibitor forms nano sheets that bind to the surface of the crystal and inhibit its growth. Dr. Drori noted that their findings “suggest that SFO assembles in solution, binds to and inhibits further growth of THF hydrates as well as ice...Future experiments and simulations will clarify the structures of the surface bound SFO assemblies and the role of clathrate waters in ice/hydrates binding.”