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Author: Kayla Benson

Dai Group Published in Nature Communications

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Dai group has recently published a paper entitled “Taming the stability of Pd active phases through a compartmentalizing strategy toward nanostructured catalyst supports” in Nature Communications.  This paper reported a new strategy in developing stable supports for high-temperature heterogeneous catalysis.   A highly stable catalyst for methane oxidation was successfully developed based on this strategy.  The general strategy can be used to synthesize other support architectures for other high-temperature catalysis processes.

As part of the Springer Nature SharedIt initiative, a stable, shortened URL is now available providing full-text access to the paper by using the following link:

https://rdcu.be/bvlzL

As an open access article, the readers will be able to download and print the PDF, and access the full-text HTML as usual. Springer Nature is working to assist all authors in disseminating their research to the wider community, and is now also providing authors publishing in subscription journals (with the ability to generate a unique shareable link).

Jenkins Published in Highly-Profiled Journal Angewandte Chemie

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David Jenkins and coworkers published a communication demonstrating the first five‑coordinate imide complexes on iron in Angewandte Chemie.

An imide is a nitrogen-metal multiple bond ligand that is associated with catalytic oxidation reactions where a nitrene (NR group) is transferred to an organic substrate.

Jenkins is interested in iron imides due to his studies on aziridination.  An aziridine is a three-membered ring with two carbon atoms and one nitrogen atom that are useful in pharmaceutical syntheses. These five‑coordinate iron imides are postulated to be key intermediates in catalytic aziridination so their isolation may lend insight into this catalytic reaction. Notably in this study, changing the carbon group bound to the nitrogen changed the spin state at the iron center. Thus, these metal complexes required careful structural characterization at the department’s new X-ray facility, spectroscopic measurements (at UT and Harvard University), and theoretical calculations by Kostas Vogiatzis. 

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Buehler Hall Wins Volunteers First Impression Contest

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While the campus has invested tremendously in new projects in recent years, most employees and students are working and learning in existing spaces.

As part of facilities services Volunteer First Impressions contest: faculty, staff, and students were encouraged to submit an idea for renovating public spaces on campus. Typical suggestions include new carpeting, painting, deep cleaning, adding plants or landscaping, and updating signage.

“This is a way to emphasize that all parts of the university are important and all programs are vital to its mission,” said Dave Irvin, associate vice chancellor of Facilities Services. “A lot of people look out at a landscape that hasn’t changed in some time.”

Facilities Services selected 10 entries to receive $10,000 in Facilities Services credit. Work on the projects will begin later in the spring.

“The winners can use the credit not only for labor, but in a wide variety of ways, including interior and exterior furnishings, materials, and landscaping,” Irvin said. “It will be exciting to see the great ideas of our students and employees become reality.”

Buehler Hall Courtyard was the fourth entry selected. The suggestion was submitted by Johnny Jones, The Department of Chemistry’s Technical Director. Johnny recommended the space because the area is “barren.” The courtyard is located just outside of room 300 Buehler, which is a large lecture hall, and it could be utilized as a waiting space for students. 

Vogiatzis Group Published in Chemical Reviews

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The Vogiatzis Group published their work “Computational Approach to Molecular Catalysis by 3d Transition Metals: Challenges and Opportunities” in Chemical Reviews.

Their work discusses the challenges and capabilities of modern electronic structure methods for studying the reaction mechanisms promoted by 3d transition metal molecular catalysts. Particular focus is placed on the ways of addressing the multiconfigurational problem in electronic structure calculations and the role of expert bias in the practical utilization of the available methods.

The development of density functionals designed to address transition metals is also discussed. Special emphasis is placed on the methods that account for solvation effects and the multicomponent nature of practical catalytic systems. This is followed by an overview of recent computational studies addressing the mechanistic complexity of catalytic processes by molecular catalysts based on 3d metals.

Conventionally, computational studies on catalytic mechanisms are heavily dependent on the chemical intuition and expert input of the researcher. Recent developments in advanced automated methods for reaction path analysis hold promise for eliminating such human-bias from computational catalysis studies.

Oxford University Press Releases Kovac’s Book

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Jeff KovacOxford University Press has just released the second edition of Jeffery Kovac’s book, The Ethical Chemist. It provides a detailed discussion of professional ethics for chemists based on the view that the specific codes of conduct derive from a three part moral ideal. It also contains a large collection of specific ethical problems that exemplify important ethical issues that are ideal for use in courses or workshops for students or working chemists.

This book has 18 new cases on ethical problems that were not covered in the first edition. Kovac “tried to make the book more useful to industrial chemists by adding more cases raising issues they face in their work. In addition, I have revised many of the original cases to clarify situations that were vague and to enliven the prose to make them more interesting.”

As a Professor of Chemistry and Director of College Scholars, Kovac is the author of over 100 publications including six previous books.

 

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Sharma Group Research Highlighted in Spectroscopy Newsletter

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Research in the Sharma lab was recently highlighted in an online Spectroscopy newsletter for using SERS and SESORS to detect neurotransmitters and probe subsurface layers through the skull. She describes the advantages of these techniques and how they are used in biological applications.

Sharma explains, “SERS is advantageous in that it provides very rapid sample analysis time versus other techniques including HPLC, mass spectrometry (MS), and fluorescence. SERS also involves little to no sample preparation, no necessary labeling, and results in a “molecular fingerprint” for each analyte even for analytes with very similar chemical structures, making identification more straightforward.”

The research goal is to “establish limits of detection for various neurotransmitters that are commonly known to be involved in specific neurological diseases and then to detect these neurotransmitters in the brain.”

 

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Dai Receives Two Prestigious Awards

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The Department of Chemistry would like to extend congratulations to Sheng Dai for recently receiving two prestigious awards for his work. He was recently named the recipient of the highly sought-after 2019 ACS Award in Separations Science & Technology AND The International Mesoporous Society’s 2018 IMMA Award. He was bestowed these honors for his significant and sustained contributions to our current knowledge of porous materials and ionic liquids for energy-related separation.

His research has significantly impacted both the synthesis and characterization of these unique materials for a number of separation processes and energy storage. He is an internationally recognized expert in the synthesis and characterization of porous materials and ionic liquids for separation chemistry and was included in the 2015 Thompson-Reuters list of the world’s most influential chemists. His work includes publishing more than 600 peer-review papers, 28 patents, and according to the h index of 94 based on Web of Science (as of Sept. 16, 2018), his papers have been cited more than 36,000 times.

 

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Roy and Lebeis Receive NSF CAREER Awards

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The College of Arts and Sciences is excited to add Sharani Roy and Sarah Lebeis to a particularly exclusive group of honorees. They join the ranks of those having been selected to receive a coveted National Science Foundation CAREER award. This esteemed early-career honor is bestowed upon promising young faculty who show exceptional potential in their field and are devoted to higher education. This award also provides a 5 year grant to help fund their research. With the addition of Roy and Lebeis, the department will have accrued 11 of these high honors.

“NSF CAREER awards are designed to prepare tenure-track faculty for a lifetime of outstanding research and education service,” said Drew Haswell, research coordinator for the college.

Sharani Roy is an assistant professor of chemistry that specializes in surface chemistry. Her research attempts to develop newer, more accurate methods of studying surface chemistry that extend beyond previous concepts of molecular dynamics simulations. In addition to developing courses on computational chemistry, surface chemistry, and scientific computing, she has partnered with Oak Ridge National Laboratory to organize a symposium on surface chemistry.

Of the almost 800 applicants in her category, Roy was one of about 170 chosen for funding. In Lebeis’s category of approximately 400, fewer than 50 were selected.

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Alumnus Selected to Lead the National Institutes of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering

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University of Tennessee’s alum Bruce J. Tromberg, PhD was recently appointed director of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB). At the developmental forefront of biophotonics, Dr. Tromberg currently maintains dual appointments in the Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Surgery at the University of California at Irvine (UCI). Additionally, he spends time as director of UCI’s Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic, an interdisciplinary research, teaching and clinical center for optics and photonics in biology and medicine. Though not currently a member of the NIH, he is expected to join in the coming year. Dr. Tromberg’s research focuses on biophotonics and biomedical optics, two rapidly growing fields that use light to image and conduct therapy at the molecular, cellular and tissue levels. He has co-authored more than 450 publications and holds 18 patents for biophotonics technologies and their applications. He specializes in new technology development as well as clinical translation, validation and commercialization of promising methods designed to improve human health.

As director, Dr. Tromberg will be charged with overseeing the NIBIB’s annual budget of approximately $378 million. The NIBIB supports multidisciplinary research in the physical, mathematical and computational sciences. Though there are allocations to NIH Laboratories, the majority of the research budget is dispersed to over 800 active grants. These have been awarded to universities to help fund research both across the nation and around the world. He will head a team of approximately 230 staff members who work directly with the development of new biomedical imaging and bioengineering technologies and techniques. These cutting edge developments aim to fundamentally improve the detection, treatment and prevention of disease.

 

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