Filed under: Conferences, Group News, Science | Tags: iron chemistry, kozak, science news, seminar
Leeds at Night (by Andrew Roberts, UK)
Chris Kozak visited the School of Chemistry at the University of Leeds last week. He gave a departmental seminar on iron catalyzed reactions being studied by his students at Memorial University. Iron is popular metal to use in metal-catalyzed reactions for organic synthesis because it is cheap and non-toxic.
Filed under: Group News, Group Photos, Science, St. John's, Students | Tags: carbon dioxide, chemistry, Green polymers, Memorial University, research, students
The St. John’s arts and entertainment magazine, “The Scope”, recently published an article in their on-line edition on some of the work occurring in the MUN Green Chemistry and Catalysis Group. Entitled “Great future in green plastics“, the article by Dave Jerome describes the research on degradable plastics that is being performed by Justin Belanger and other students in the group.
Filed under: Group News, Science, Students | Tags: chemistry, research, students
Good luck to Lisa, Marcus and Michelle with their presentations today!
Lisa N. Saunders (C. Kozak) “Synthesis and Reactivity of Amine-bis(phenolate) Complexes of Germanium and Tin”
Michelle E. Pratt (C. Kozak) “The Synthesis and Reactivity of Amine-bis(phenolate) Calcium and Magnesium Complexes”
Marcus W. Drover (F. Kerton) “From Bismuth(III) Boats to Lithium Ladders and Beyond: The Structural, Catalytic and Spectroscopic Features of Main-Group Clusters”
VT NMR of Li complex
Filed under: Group News, Science, Students | Tags: biorefinery, canada, chitosan, fishery, green chemistry, PhD student, renewable feedstock, waste
The first paper from Khaled’s PhD research has been accepted for publication by Green Chemistry.
It is called “Hydrolysis of Chitosan Into Levulinic Acid and 5-Hydroxymethylfurfural In Water Under Microwave Irradiation”
It describes our first efforts at converting biopolymers that can be obtained from fishery waste into potentially useful small molecules. This proof of concept will hopefully lead to these natural materials being used alongside agricultural and forestry wastes as the starting point for chemicals with a wide range of purposes including, fuels, agrochemicals, pharmaceuticals and plastics.
Some of the results were obtained in collaboration with Jessica Besaw (NSERC USRA 2010, Kerton group) who Khaled acted as mentor to. Congratulations Khaled and Jess!
Aminopolysaccharides (Chitin) are available in the shells of crustaceans (lobsters, crabs, shrimps). Khaled has shown that valuable 'Platform' chemicals can be made from them
Green Chem., DOI:10.1039/C2GC35048C
Chris and Fran were invited to participate in a departmental symposium and be the supporting act for Dr. Stephen Liddle (Nottingham University) who was giving his Royal Society of Chemistry Sir Edward Frankland Fellowship Award Lecture. Fran spoke about “Catalysis and Nanoparticle Formation Using Ionic Liquids” and Chris spoke about “Iron Complexes for C-C Cross-coupling Reactions”
They took the opportunity to do some sightseeing…..if you look carefully you might spot a photo of Fran giving her lecture!
Filed under: St. John's | Tags: chemistry, east coast trail, hiking, Memorial University, newfoundland, st. john's
Beautiful scenery on our doorstep – a recent story from the Telegram newspaper – World class adventure!
Hope all current and future researchers in our group are taking advantage of the East Coast Trail on our doorstep. Louise Dawe and other researchers in the department have been involved with the development, maintenance and general up keep of the trail – ask around the department and people will love to tell you about their favourite sections and their recommendations.
Filed under: St. John's
A little bit about the city and Newfoundland for those who have never visited us!
Filed under: Group News
Chris was featured on the Faculty of Science news page for his Terra Nova Young Innovator Award. It is linked here.
Further to work being patented by their respective Universities and GreenCentre Canada, results on controlled radical polymerization using iron amine-phenolate complexes has been accepted for publication in Macromolecular Rapid Communications, DOI: 10.1002/marc.201100872 Congratulations to the Kozak (MUN) and Shaver (UPEI) groups.
Charlotte Willans (PhD with Dr. Kerton, 2004) has obtained exciting results in the field of chemotherapy. Her work on silver carbene complexes has been published in Dalton Transactions. It has been featured in the UK Newspaper “The Daily Mail” and she was interviewed on Radio 4 (National UK radio) this morning. Congratulations Charlotte!
Green Chemistry @ MUN 