The article states that hopefully they "can stimulate further exploration of nitrogen chemistry in the search of novel nitrogen-based technological materials."

So it looks like nothing super specific here, but it's yet another building block for the advancement of chemistry and nano technology. Now that [ N6]4- can be synthesized, it now can be studied off of paper.

Let's say we find out that cute ring is fantastic at shuttling around an ion? What if it's great at temporarily holding ions or creates a bed of electrons, similar to how precious metals work in the catalytic converter of your car. Nitrogen makes up the majority of the air we breathe, so it's dirt cheap. If it could be converted to a highly usefully ring for cheap? That'd be fantastic!

It also might be useful for synthesizing other compounds. Boron chemistry is an entire sub field because boron doesn't follow the octet rule, so it does cool things. Way beyond the scope of this response but instead of directly reacting in the reaction, it'll form intermediate complexes, or hold a temporary structure so that the reaction you want to happen can take place at all, or maybe significantly faster than without.

Edit: I'd like to add that rings, especially complex rings can be a huge pain to form. Vitamin B-12 synthesis took an obscene amount of manpower with many, many teams running concurrent studies to create parts of the vitamin, then the end goal was to link those pieces together, which took more research.

/u/BiochemistChef's response is great, so I'll try not to repeat.

Instead, I'll highlight another aspect: A ring containing 6 nitrogen atoms and 6 electrons in pi-orbitals is something which theory has predicted could exist for a long time and which we might make. But while theory is good, reality is always more interesting. Reality often functions as the measuring stick by which we can see if our theories are correct or not. That's the fundamental nature of science.

Consider those physicists who keep on proving Einstein right again and again: They're checking to see if reality looks the same as our theoretical understanding.

Another aspect of why this was published in a prominent chemistry journal (and why I'm rather enthused about the result) is that benzene has very interesting chemistry which is the result of the special arrangement of electrons which it possesses. It's the foundation of huge swaths of chemistry. And so chemists have seen how we might modify it so it's not just 6 carbon atoms in a ring.

Chemists wonder "What happens if we start swapping out some of the 6 carbon atoms in a benzene ring for different atoms?" Those molecules are termed heterocyclic compounds.

https://i0.wp.com/www.compoundchem.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Heterocycles-graphic.png?ssl=1

What happens if you swap 1 carbon atom with a nitrogen atom? Pyridine is just that and it's a motif which appears frequently. The nitrogen allows chemists to use it as a ligand for metal atoms.

What if we replace 2 carbon atoms with nitrogen atoms? We've done that. It give you pyrimidine, pyrazine, and pyridazine, each with different chemical properties.

You'll note that the series doesn't stop with just 1 or 2 nitrogen atoms substituted. We can imagine a complete series:

• 6-membered rings with zero nitrogen atoms: benzine
• 6-membered rings with one nitrogen atom: pyridine
• 6-membered rings with two nitrogen atoms: diazines
• 6-membered rings with three nitrogen atoms: triazines
• 6-membered rings with four nitrogen atoms: tetrazines
• 6-membered rings with five nitrogen atoms: pentazine (still only hypothetical)
• 6-membered rings with six nitrogen atoms: hexazine

Using series of molecules like that, we can better understand why they have the properties that we observe and how we might plan to change the properties of other similar heterocyclic molecules.

I'd add that many of those N-heterocycle motifs turn up in really useful molecules. For a munch of my PhD, I worked with plastics containing polyvinylpyridine to make cool nano patterns.

Those nitrogen containing aromatic molecules also turn up in pharmaceuticals:

• Rosuvastatin, _ a statin medication, used to prevent cardiovascular disease in those at high risk and treat abnormal lipids_.
• There's a slew of quinoline derivatives with medical application, including quinine which was long used as an antimalarial medication.
• Adenine one of the nucleobases in our DNA contains the pyrimidine motif. That pyrimidine motif shows up in a lot of pharmaceuticals.

Many of those need the nitrogen(s) in the ring for efficacy, so it's also worth exploring new synthetic methods for making nitrogen heterocycles. They aren't typically using lasers and diamond anvil cells, but the future might hold some surprises.