Green Chemistry @ MUN


2012 Gordon Research Conference on Green Chemistry

Chris and Fran have just returned from their travels in Europe after attending the GRC on Green Chemistry (in Barga, Italy). This meeting was fantastic in terms of science, location, people……in fact it was probably one of the best conferences we have ever been to! Thank you to all who made it the event it was.

Fran gave a talk on the first morning entitled “Chemical transformations of aminocarbohydrates”, which prompted some good discussion and we’ve come away with lots of great new ideas. Chris and Fran also presented their posters over the course of the week, and got to meet some fantastic people.



Chris appears on Rogers TV “Out of the Fog”

Chris was interviewed on the Rogers TV St. John’s local television program “Out of the Fog” yesterday. The segment discussed the problems with currently used plastics and how biodegradable and renewably-sourced plastics, such as those being investigated in the MUN Green Chemistry Group, may be able to address some of the long term environmental issues.



Khaled and Jess’ research in the April top ten!

Congratulations to Khaled on his Departmental Seminar yesterday.

He received two bits of exciting news today:

1) His research on the production of levulinic acid and 5-hydroxymethylfurfural has made it into the top ten most accessed articles in Green Chemistry for April 2012.

2) His full paper on the formation of an amidofuran from N-acetyl D-glucosamine has been accepted for publication in the prestigious journal ChemSusChem. (Impact Factor, 6.3). In this work, we note that the presence of main-group elements (B & Cl) in your feedstock can have a significant effect on the reaction outcomes.

Also, congratulations to Linda (one of our DAAD RISE summer researchers who visited our group in summer 2011) – who is a co-author on the ChemSusChem paper.

Chemicals from Fishery waste



Earth Day 2012 Poster Session @Georgia Tech
April 23, 2012, 7:39 am
Filed under: Conferences, Group News | Tags: , , , ,

Prof Art Ragauskas has been organizing an online poster celebration to celebrate Earth Day since 2010.

This year our group took part for the 1st time, as Khaled submitted a poster on his research surrounding the hydrolysis of chitosan. It is available here.

Thank you to Khaled for sharing his research with a wider audience and to all those involved in organizing this event.