Green Chemistry @ MUN

Two of our graduate students – Courtney and Juliana (Ju) – are taking part in the graduate student blog (an initiative of the School of Graduate Studies) here.

Please follow along and learn of the adventures that our students have as they complete their graduate degrees.

Here is a link: http://www.mun.ca/sgs/studentblog/welcomeback/

Three new graduate students joined the Green Chemistry and Catalysis group at MUN this September. Welcome to the team!

Courtney is co-supervised by Chris and Fran. She will be developing new methods for transforming waste produced in aquaculture/fish processing to produce value-added materials. She will also work closely with Kelly Hawboldt in Process Engineering at MUN.  Courtney recently completed her B.Sc.(Hons) degree here in Chemistry and Earth Sciences.

Keegan has joined Chris’ group from Lakehead University in Ontario. His honours research was on palladium catalyzed reactions for organic synthesis. His MSc research will focus on developing and understanding iron-catalyzed reactions.

Ju (Juliana) joins Fran’s group from Brazil. Her M.Sc. involved research focused on applications of biopolymers incl. cellulose for sequestration of metal ions. She will be working on a collaborative project co-supervised by Fran and Stephanie MacQuarrie (Cape Breton University and Adjunct Professor at MUN) on the application of biochars in catalysis.

Thank you Kate and Sarah for all your hard work this summer in the MUN Green Chemistry and Catalysis Group. We hope you drop by and visit when you attend MUN as undergraduates in September 2018!

We have several projects approved for next years Mitacs Globalink Research Internships. Please apply yourself if you meet the criteria or share this information with suitable students that are interested in spending time doing research in Canada. The application deadline is quite soon for positions next summer.

Their titles are:

1. Solvent Free Chemistry of Aminocarbohydrates
2. Waste Marine Biomass as a Source of Renewable Chemicals
3. Catalysis Research For The Development of New Chemical Processes Using Carbon Dioxide

At the end of July 2017, students from Australia, Brazil, China, France, India, Germany, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and Ukraine will be able to view all approved projects and apply to those that match their interests and skills. For more information, visit the Globalink Research Internships web page: https://www.mitacs.ca/en/programs/globalink/globalink-research-internship

Photo from CHHA-NL facebook page – link below

Hart Plommer (PhD candidate, Kerton group) with Kori Andrea (MSc candidate, Kerton group) organized a science camp for children in St. John’s.  The children had a fantastic time with lots of hands-on experiences. Hopefully, some are inspired to be future scientists. Thank you also to Karen Hattenhauer (Dept. of Chemistry) for advice and other volunteers from the green chemistry and catalysis group

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1092415530857948.1073741842.270813043018205&type=1&l=e74f1818a8

Congratulations to Yi who successfully defended her PhD thesis today

George, Erika and Kori are on their way back from the ACS Summer School (Boulder, Colorado). They had a great time learning about their field and made many new friends and connections. Thanks to the ACS for organizing and the ACS Petroleum Research Fund for sponsorship.

Erika and Kori at their posters

George and friends during poster session

Chris, Fran, Jen, Erika and Kori represented our team at the 100th CSC held in Toronto a couple of weeks ago. Chris and Fran were invited to talk as part of the “Frontiers in Controlled Polymerization” symposium and Kori received a travel award to participate in the Green Chemistry Crash Course and Industrial Case Study (organized by the UofT Green Chemistry Initiative with GreenCentre Canada). Thank you to the organizers for a wonderful conference both scientifically and socially. Also, thanks to the Blue Jays for being in town, which meant we got to check out some games at the Rogers Centre 🙂

The Memorial University Chemistry Society (MUNCS) hosted the region’s chemical conference this past weekend – over 140 chemists attended. Well done to all involved. Chris and Fran are especially proud of their group members who did an excellent job giving their talks and presenting their posters, and making sure that our visitors had a good time! More photographs from the conference can be found on the conference’s facebook page linked here

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Kata successfully defended her PhD thesis on chromium catalysts for CO2 and epoxide copolymerization. Many thanks to her examination committee: Mike Katz and Sunil Pansare (MUN) and Arjan Kleij (Tarragona).