Green Chemistry @ MUN

In her post from last week, Ju talks about some of her ‘new’ experiences living in Newfoundland including fly-fishing, and also how she is tackling her glossophobia (fear of public speaking. Well done Ju!

In her post in late August, Courtney describes her summer travels including her time at the ACS Summer School on Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering in Golden, Colorado, and also the effort involved in writing her first paper (now submitted, so fingers crossed). Well done Courtney!

As many of our followers know, we will be moving to the enormous, state-of-the-art core science facility in 2020. Building is progressing well (see photo below) and you can follow this website for more updates: https://www.mun.ca/csf/

If you join our group in 2019, you will be in our current large, refurbished lab initially but will then move into the new building for the remainder of your studies.  If you have any questions, just get in touch!

Core Science Facility, September 2018. Our labs will be on the 3rd floor of the central pavilion

Two new papers from our group are now available – congratulations to Jue Gong (now at Western) on his RSC Advances article, and Kenson Ambrose and Tim Anderson on their review in Coordination Chemistry Reviews.

Prof. Chris Kozak had a busy day speaking with local media representatives about problems surrounding the city’s water supply to the west end. He appeared on the Morning Show on CBC Radio 1, Here and Now on CBC TV and the Early Edition of NTV news

Prof. Chris Kozak at the CBC Studios, St. John’s (Photo courtesy of @sjmorningshow on twitter)

Hopefully the city workers and engineers will be able to identify a solution to this problem soon.

Kori was recently interviewed in our lab about her research on plastics from carbon dioxide and the potential to make new materials that would biodegrade in the ocean (instead of polluting it).  You can listen to her via this link http://www.cbc.ca/listen/shows/the-broadcast/episode/15588109

Well done Kori – we are proud of you!

Today we took a group photo for our WISE students. Unfortunately, Courtney and Hart couldn’t be there….so we’ll take another one in September 🙂

Courtney Laprise had a wonderful time in Golden Colorado at the ACS Summer School on Green Chemistry and Sustainable Energy. Thank you to ACS PRF and all the tutors/organizers/lecturers/students for such an invaluable experience.

Hart Plommer, Dr. Kerton and Dr. Kozak attended the International Conference on Organometallic Chemistry 2018 in Florence, Italy, #ICOMC2018.  We had a great time presenting our work, meeting up with old friends, making new friends and seeing inspiring talks incl. a plenary by Prof. Ben Feringa (#Nobelprize) with outstanding alkyl lithium chemistry.  One of the benefits of our location on the far North-East coast of North America is that we have the shortest flights to Europe. St. John’s to London Heathrow is ~ 4 hours long….so very convenient for European conferences, travels and collaborations

The bottom set of photos are from the conference excursion into the Chianti region of Tuscany

Juliana (Ju) Vidal joined the Kerton group last September and is reflecting on her first year in Canada, and how it is to be an International Graduate Student at Memorial University.  You can find the piece here. Well done Ju!

Juliana Vidal, PhD Candidate, Memorial Univ. Green Chemistry & Catalysis Group, Honorable Mention in international student video competition

Center for Green Chemistry & Green Engineering at Yale hosted a student video competition at the 22nd Green Chemistry & Engineering conference in Portland, Oregon.

The videos are available on their website and are a great resource to use for educational purposes and spread knowledge and awareness about sustainable chemistry.

Juliana Vidal (PhD Candidate, Kerton group) entered the contest and described her personal journey to become a green chemist. She received an honorable mention. Congratulations Juliana!

The Green Chemistry Group and Prof. Meldrum (Job Lecturer 2018) learned about early Newfoundland history and archaeology on Tuesday afternoon. We visited Colony of Avalon and spent time taking in the artifacts in the interpretation centre, talking with the guide, scientists and historians in the archaeology lab, and visiting the excavated sites, and the model 17th century kitchen.  We were there for the #greatcolonialcookoff week 1 and got to try “Tea with Eggs“, which surprisingly everyone enjoyed. It may have been because we needed to warm up after being outside in the #Juneuary weather.