Multicomponent serendipity

The discovery of unusual physical or chemical properties in multicomponent systems demands the isolation and chemical and physical characterization of the single component which is responsible for the observed effect. In many instances the resulting search is less than systematic and depends more on serendipity than on careful experimentation. As an example, many of the early attempts to discover the compound responsible for superconducting transition temperatures in the 90K range were sometimes haphazard when viewed in terms of synthetic techniques. 

The most dramatic effect of the solvent is that it co-adsorbs with solute molecules on the substrate forming a regular multicomponent 2D crystal (see Sect. 5). In most cases though, solvent co-adsorption was not anticipated and was observed by serendipity. However, its effect could be rationalized in most cases in a straightforward way. 

Multicomponent Domino Process Rational Design and Serendipity... 

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