MICHAEL T. POPE AND ACHIM MULLER Department of Chemistry, Georgetown
University, Washington, DC 20057-2222, U.S.A.; Department of Chemistry,
University of Bielefeld, D-4BOO Bielefeld 1, F.R.G. Polyoxometalates,
from their discovery and early development in the final decades of the
19th century to their current significance in disciplines as diverse as
chemistry, mathematics, and medicine, continue to display surprisingly
novel structures, unexpected reactivities and applications, and to
attract increasing attention worldwide. Most of the contributors to the
present volume participated in the workshop held at the Center for
Interdisciplinary Research at the University of Bielefeld, July 15-17,
1992. The choice of topics illustrates some of the variety of directions
and fields in which polyoxometalates can play an important role.
Although many of the leading polyoxometalate research groups are
represented here, we regret that time constraints, financial
limitations, and in some cases difficulties of communication did not
allow us to include significant and imp- tant work from other groups
outside Europe and North America. In the following we briefly review the
current status of the field of po- oxometalates.