Green Chemistry @ MUN

A short blog post 🙂

Today, we have set up our control system (i.e. non-degradable polymer) to test our polymer biodegradation system and get a baseline for zero carbon dioxide production.  We will be setting up some seawater studies soon too.  We thank the Association of Commonwealth Universities for funding our collaborations in this area with ACU Blue Charter Fellows spending 3 months in our group.  Our experimental set-up is based on this PLoS ONE paper, which is open-access.

Biodegradation Experimental Set-up

Yesterday was a big day in the group, as George successfully defended his PhD on “Mechanochemical Transformations of alpha-Chitin”.  Today – he will begin doing his corrections and start looking for a postdoctoral position in earnest.  The past 5 years have flown by so quickly!

George is in the bottom center of all photos; Top = group photo, bottom left = supervisor and supervisory committee members present , bottom right = examiners, chair and supervisor/supervisory committee. Congratulations Dr. George Margoutidis