Filed under: Uncategorized
Dr. Kozak features in FoS Alumni magazine
Chris appears in volume 3 of the faculty of science alumni’ magazine. He is featured to celebrate his Suncor Young Innovator award.
Filed under: Group News, Science | Tags: biodegradable plastics, catalysis, graduate research, Green polymers, lactide, lithium, Publication, undergraduate research
The journal Dalton Transactions has accepted a paper from the Kozak group describing the work of Rebecca (PhD 2012), Amy (B.Sc. 2010) and Hua (M.Sc. in progress) on lithium complexes that polymerize rac-lactide. We thank our co-authors Celine Schneider and Louise Dawe for help with valuable solid-state NMR and X-ray diffraction studies.
Chris and his research make an appearance in the president’s annual report/highlights. There is a link to the full report through today.mun.ca Congratulations to Chris on this honour (builidng on his Suncor Young Innovator award)
Filed under: Group News, Science | Tags: aluminum, biodegradable plastics, caprolactone, carbon dioxide, catalysis, chemistry, chromium, Coordination Chemistry, Green polymers, Publication, undergraduate research
Yesterday, the profs got good news from the publishers 😀
Dr. Kerton’s paper was accepted by Organometallics and Dr. Kozak’s paper was accepted by Dalton Transactions.
The Organometallics paper is about the synthesis and reactivity of some aluminum complexes. Some of the compounds were prepared for the first time by Marcus Drover (during his SWASP in summer 2010) and Stephanie Barbon (in summer 2011 as an NSERC USRA/ICE student). Kinetic studies were performed by Nduka on their activity in ring-opening polymerization of caprolactone. He also discovered that the chloride complex could initiate the copolymerization of carbon dioxide and cyclohexene oxide. http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/om300757u
The Dalton Transactions paper contains research results from Rebecca’s PhD thesis on copolymerization of carbon dioxide with propylene oxide and addition reactions between styrene oxide and carbon dioxide. This is the second paper published from the Kozak group Cr catalysts for this reaction (Paper 1: Inorg. Chem. 2012) and also builds on results obtained using related Co complexes (Catalysis Communications 2012).
A big thank you to Louise Dawe for her expertise in X-ray crystallography and to all the students involved!
Al complexes for ring-opening polymerization of caprolactone and activation of carbon dioxide
Filed under: Uncategorized
Rebecca successfully defended her thesis yesterday! It was titled “Multimetallic Lithium and Chromium Complexes of Amine-bis(phenolate) Ligands and Polymerization Catalysts”
She gave a very professional overview of her thesis at the beginning of the oral exam and was ‘grilled’ by her external examiner (Kevin Smith, UBC Okanagan, an expert on Cr chemistry) and internal examiners (Christina Bottaro and Yuming Zhao).
A large audience of group members were in attendance so I’m sure she enjoyed the support!
Fran has just attended the conference “Green Solvents for Synthesis” in Boppard, Germany, which was organized by Dechema. She gave a talk on aminocarbohydrates as ocean-sourced renewable feedstocks – focusing on group results using water or ionic liquids as the solvent. It was a good meeting and she got to meet a number of chemists working in this area and the editor of the journal Green Chemistry.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Anyone interested in carbon dioxide activation and copolymerization should take a look at the green chemistry blog. It highlights a recent review by Darensbourg and Wilson.
Congratulations to Khaled, who defended his PhD thesis yesterday.
Thank you to all involved in the defence: the examiners, the chair, and those who work in the School of Graduate Studies especially Ruby and Elizabeth.
Photo after Khaled’s defence: Dr. Schlaf (University of Guelph) and Dr. Kerton attended via webcamera. Dr. Solberg was Chair. Dr. Helleur and Dr. Hawboldt (not in photo) were the internal examiners.
Now, Khaled is busy making the necessary corrections to his thesis so that it can be submitted for binding.
Khaled’s PhD research has been published in the three articles listed here. Links are provided below.
K. W. Omari, L. Dodot and F. M. Kerton*, “A Simple One-Pot Dehydration Process to Convert N-acetyl-D-glucosamine into a Nitrogen-Containing Compound, 3-acetamido-5-acetylfuran”, ChemSusChem, 2012, 5, 1767-72, cssc.201200113
M. W. Drover, K. W. Omari, J. N. Murphy and F. M. Kerton*, “Formation of a renewable amide via direct conversion of N-acetyl-D-glucosamine”, RSC Adv., 2012, 2, 4642-4643, DOI:10.1039/C2RA20578E
K. W. Omari, J. E. Besaw and F. M. Kerton*, “Hydrolysis of Chitosan Into Levulinic Acid and 5-Hydroxymethylfurfural In Water Under Microwave Irradiation”, Green Chemistry, 2012, 14, 1480-1487, DOI:10.1039/C2GC35048C. One of the top ten most-accessed articles in Green Chem. in April 2012.
Filed under: Group News, Students | Tags: carbon dioxide, chemistry, green, MSc, PhD, sustainable
Dr. Kozak and Dr. Kerton plan to recruit several new graduate students to being in Fall 2013. (Dr. Kozak also has funding for students to begin in Jan or May 2013).
Projects include:
1. Copolymerization and related transformations of carbon dioxide using chromium (Kozak group) and aluminum (Kerton group) complexes.
2. Catalytic transformations using earth abundant metals, e.g. iron (Kozak group)
3. Catalytic transformations of a renewable amide (Kerton group)
If you are interesting in joining our research team, please contact us for more information. All applications must be submitted via the School of Graduate Studies. Stipends for students in the PhD program are $20,000 per year and in the MSc program, $18,000 per year.
Students in our group gain (1) interdisciplinary training inorganic/organic/analytical in a recently refurbished laboratory; (2) hands on experience using a range of instruments; (3) opportunities to travel and to collaborate.
Most MSc students have published 1 or 2 papers and PhD students 3-5 papers during their studies. See publication lists for more detail.
Currently, we have no funding for postdoctoral fellows BUT researchers are encouraged to apply for Government of Canada Fellowships etc. see details on bottom half of this page.
Green Chemistry @ MUN 