NJC Blog

We are pleased to announce the recent poster prizes awarded at the 2011 Entretiens Jacques Cartier Colloquium on 21^st Century Catalysis Science and Applications held in Ottawa, Canada on September 29,30.

• Dr. Marianne Trépannier (University of Ottawa) was selected for her poster entitled, “The role of catalytic site deposition on cobalt catalysts supported on carbon nanotubes for Fischer-Tropsch synthesis.”

Marianne obtained her PhD degree from the University of Saskatchewan, Canada. During her PhD study she worked on research project that focused on improving the Co/CNT catalyst selectivity for FTS synthesis. ”The most important result of this project is that by controlling the active metal position in the carbon nanotubes (CNT) support, the catalyst shows better selectivity for diesel. Moreover, deposition of the cobalt particle inside the CNT decreases the catalyst deactivation phenomena”, comments on her project results.

Marianne now holds a postdoctoral position in Dr. Sayari group at Center for Catalysis Research and Innovation and her future plan is to become a research leader in catalysis for renewable energy.

(photo: Dr. Marianne Trépannier and Prof. R. Tom Baker,  CCRI Director (University of Ottawa))

• The other poster prize was awarded to Dr. Daniel Harrison (University of Ottawa) for his poster entitled, “New cobalt fluorocarbenes: Synthesis and preliminary reactivity studies.”

Daniel is postdoctoral researcher in Prof. Tom Baker’s group, at the Centre for Catalysis Research and Innovation, University of Ottawa, Canada.

The goal of his project has been to make new, nucleophilic metal fluorocarbenes of non-precious metals for potential applications in fluoroalkene polymerization. A real challenge, as it turns out…Working on this project early two years, Daniel has had success in extending chemistry developed by Hughes and co-workers to cobalt (their work has focused on much more expensive Ir).The syntheses of the new cobalt fluorocarbenes were disclosed in the prize-winning poster for the first time. Preliminary reactivity studies, establish that these new fluorocarbenes of cobalt have the desired nucleophilic reactivity.

When queried about his future plans, Daniel commented: “I’ll continue working on cobalt fluorocarbenes, while balancing other responsibilities, such as lab maintenence and supervising undergraduate/graduate students.  I’m thrilled with the opportunity to stay in the Baker group, especially now that my project is working!”

Graduate students from Romania and Greece won the poster prizes sponsored by NJC at the recent European Conference on Chemistry for Life Sciences, the 4th in the series, held in Budapest.

Árpád Csog (Univ. Babes Bolyai, Kolozsvár, Romania) was selected for his poster entitled “Heavy Metal Phytoaccumulation by Aquatic Plants (Cabomba Aquatica, Vallisneria Spiralis, Echinodorus Cordifolius)“. Common aquarium plants like fanwort, tape grass and marble queen were shown to remove copper, zinc and cadmium from water. As these plants are easily cultivated and controlled, they show potential for the phytoremediation of contaminated waters. In this project, carried out in the group of Professor Kornelia Majdik, the defense response of the plants to the toxic effect of the heavy metals will also be studied.

(Left: Winner Árpád Csog with conference organiser Prof. Tamás Kiss.)

Dionysios Vourtsis (Univ. Patras, Greece) was selected for his poster entitled “A Solution NMR Study of Native and Mutated Forms of the Anthrax Lethal Factor Catalytic Site Polypeptide“. The group of Dr. Georgias A. Spyroulias is interested in elucidating the structural basis of ALF–substrate interactions. The biophysical characterization and backbone  assignments of the enzyme’s core  protease domain revealed a stable, well-folded structure even in the absence of Zn(II). The NMR structure of the metal-free catalytic core polypeptide exhibits  great similarities with the crystal structures of the corresponding  polypeptide. An NMR study of the metallated polypeptide is the next objective of this project.

(Right: Winner Dionysios Vourtsis.)

Congratulations to the deserving winners, and many thanks to the conference organisers and the volunteer jury members for their hard work!

A 2nd year graduate student in the group of Luciano Marchio at the University of Parma, Italy, was awarded the NJC Poster Prize at the 5th EuCheMS Conference on Nitrogen Ligands held in Granada, Spain, last week.

Irene Bassenetti‘s winning poster dealt with silver(I) complexes used as lubricants. Pure silver has long been known to be a good lubricant. The trick is to obtain these pure silver layers, without organic contaminants from the ligands. The new bimetallic complexes gave high purity layers that showed excellent results on stainless steel.

The synthesis and characterization of the compounds was carried out in Parma. The analysis of the silver layers formed upon decomposition of the complex and the tribological properties when the complex was added to an oil were studied at Northwestern University in a collaboration with the group of Tobin Marks and the US Army.

Many congratulations to Johannes H. Klein of Würzburg University in Germany who was the NJC poster prize winner at the 19th International Symposium on the Photophysics and Photochemistry of Coordination Compounds held in Strasbourg last week.

Johannes, who works in Prof. Christoph Lambert’s group, won for his poster entitled “Photoinduced Charge Transfer Properties of Donor and Acceptor Substituted Iridium(III)-Complexes”. He was presented with a glossy certificate, and receives a one-year subscription to the journal. Why not find out more about Johannes’s research by visiting the Lambert Group homepage.

The meeting brought together over 250 participants from all over the world, featured 16 plenary and invited lectures by internationally distinguished scientists, and over 40 contributed talks, covering the most recent developments on topics including:

Photophysics

Light emitting molecular materials

Biosystems

Light driven systems for energy purposes

Coordination photochemistry

Many congratulations again from the NJC editorial office to Johannes on his award, and to the organizers of this conference for making it another great event for the photochemistry and photophysics community.

Why not submit your next article to NJC today!

Two NJC Interface poster prizes were awarded at the ElecMol’10 conference, held in Grenoble (France) last month.

• The award-winning poster of Mr Ferry Prins, a PhD student in the Kavli Institute of Nanoscience (Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands)  in the group of Prof. Herre S. J. van der Zant, was entitled “Design for an all-electric single molecule motor and a room temperature molecular memory element”. This work includes the construction and characterization of new device architectures, and also the development of novel concepts on a theoretical level.

• Mr Titoo Jain, who is a PhD student in the Nano-Science Center & Department of Chemistry at University of Copenhagen, Denmark, in the group of Prof. Thomas Bjørnholm, won for his poster entitled “Towards single-molecule junctions via self-assembly of gold nanorods“. This work is focused on nanoparticles and molecular and organic electronics.

NJC wishes to congratulate  the two laureates who receive a one-year subscription to the journal.  Our thanks go to the organizers of the conference for their help in organizing these awards, and our deep gratitude to all of the senior scientists who served on the jury to select the two winners.

Laurent Vial, Assistant Editor.

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