CSD Heroes: Arnold L. Rheingold
In the year that the CSD hit one million structures, we wanted to highlight and thank some of the most prolific contributors to the database. Our 8th CSD Hero in this series is Arnold L. Rheingold who currently sits 3rd in our annual CSD author statistics!
About Arnold L. Rheingold
Arnold L. Rheingold is an American chemist and Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of California, San Diego. He achieved his B.S. and M.S. from Case Western Reserve University and his Ph.D from the University of Maryland. His awards and academic honors include the ACS Award for Distinguished Service in the Advancement of Inorganic Chemistry in 2012, Elected Fellow of the ACS in 2011, Chair of the ACS Division of Inorganic Chemistry in 2002 and Elected Fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1992. Prof. Rheingold’s research explores ways of using X-ray crystallography to provide very rapid and accurate structural characterizations of new compounds. His interest in crystallography arose from research into the synthesis and properties of large cluster structures containing hybrid p-block and transition-metal Arnold atoms. These are often paramagnetic solids necessitating crystallographic characterization.(1)
Arnold L. Rheingold and the CSD
Arnold is currently 3rd in our annual list of most prolific authors in the CSD with over 5,700 entries. Arnold has submitted entries to the CSD every year since 1977. His busiest year to date was 2015, when he submitted a very impressive 451 entries. A graph showing the growth of Arnold’s entries in the CSD per year is shown below.
A graph showing the growth of Arnold’s entries in the CSD with new additions that year shown in darker blue
Arnold has published structures in over 100 different journals with over 3,290 unique co-authors. His structures are diverse; they include 77 different element types, a massive 555,419 atomic coordinates and cover 98 difference space groups. One of his largest structures in terms of the number of atomic coordinates (864) is CSD Entry: PEZVOH which was published in Angewandte Chemie, International Edition in 2013.
Arnold’s structure with the largest number of atomic coordinates (864) – CSD Entry: PEZVOH
Arnold has many more entries in the metal-organic (4,514, 78%) than the organic (1,245, 22%) disciplines. His structures have an average R-factor of 4.97, lower than the average R-factor of the entire CSD and 27 % of his structures have modelled disorder.
Infographic showing a breakdown of Arnold’s entries
We have enjoyed browsing through Arnold’s entries in the CSD. Each entry is valuable individually and collectively they contain a wealth of data that can be used by scientists worldwide. Thank you, Arnold L. Rheingold, for all your hard work and for all your brilliant structures!
Get involved
This is the 8th blog in our series of blog posts featuring the most prolific authors in the CSD which highlight some statistics and structures to celebrate their achievements and thank them for their phenomenal contribution. If you would like to share stories about these crystallographers, some of their fascinating structures or tell us about your heroes of the CSD you can tweet us at @ccdc_cambridge using hashtag #CSDHeroes19.
References
1. https://www-chem.ucsd.edu/faculty/profiles/rheingold_arnold_l.html