Licheng Sun

Researchers at the Department of Chemistry have managed to construct a molecular catalyst that can oxidize water to oxygen with a very high rate (world record!). For the first time rates that are comparable with those in nature has been achieved.

One of the great challenges we face is to find an environmental friendly process to produce energy and does not consume fossil fuels. One way is of course to use the sun and research has been performed all over the world for very long time to find an artificial photosyntehtic system to split water efficiently into H₂ and O₂. The bottleneck for such systems is to invent a more efficient water oxidation catalyst.

Professor Licheng Sun at Organic Chemistry and his research team (in particular Dr. Lele Duan) have recently published an article in Nature Chemistry where they describe a molecular water oxidation catalyst they have developed very recently. The catalyst has a very high reaction rate for water oxidation with a turnover frequency of more than 300 s^-1, which is a world record(!) and comparable with the reaction rate of 100-400 s^-1 of the oxygen-evolving complex of photosystem II found in nature.

Read more Breakthrough in Artificial Photosynthesis Could Boost Solar Future

Read the whole article at Nature Chemistry's site (pdf)

Read more about Professor Sun's research here.

Se filmen om Andreas, Irmas och Emilias utbytespraktik i New York

Irma, Emilia och Andreas utbildar sig på KTH till civilingenjörer i kemi. Förväntan låg i luften inför sommaren 2011. Sommaren då de gav sig iväg på utlandspraktik till New York. Alla stod de inför olika utmaningar.

Malin Wohlert, PhD, Kungliga Tekniska högskolan "Automatiska simuleringar för design av nanocellulosamaterial

 Enormt viktigt att unga svenska forskare kommer ut i världen men sedan erbjuds bra villkor när de kommer tillbaka och då kan stipendiet spela en viktig roll. Så inledde Ingvar Carlsson, Stiftelsen för Strategiska Forskning(SSF):s utdelning i torsdags av det mycket prestigefulla Ingvar Carlsson Award som ges till unga forskare som återvänt till Sverige efter postdok. Det är fjärde gången priset delas ut under SSFs 18 årig historia.  Det kom in 75 ansökningar till SSF och 14 pristagare utsågs efter omfattande granskning. KTH har den här gången en pristagare och mycket glädjande för oss är det Malin Wohlert som är verksam på Skolan för Kemivetenskap inom WWSC.

Stort Grattis Malin! 

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Omslaget till Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) 17 januari 2012

Studien ”Exploring monovalent copper compounds with oxygen and hydrogen”  av P. A. Korzhavyi (ITM, KTH), I. L. Soroka (CHE, KTH), E. I. Isaev (LiU (avliden))C. Lilja (SKB) och B. Johansson (ITM, KTH) publicerades i Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) 17 januari 2012.

Nya viktiga tillämpningar av koppar, t ex inom områdena produktion av vätgas, bränsleceller och använt kärnbränsle, kräver exakt kunskap om de fysikaliska och kemiska egenskaperna för stabila och metastabila kopparföreningar.

Omslagsbilden som valts ut till PNAS är tagen med svepelektronmikroskop och visar kopparpartiklar från sönderdelning av kopparhydrid. Kristallerna på bilden med storleken ca 400 nm har en form av öknens ros kristall, vilket är mycket ovanligt för kopparpartiklar.

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Lars Kloo & Mats Jonsson

The second of December the following article article about iodine, which is celebrating 200 years, was published:

Commemoirating Two Centuries of Iodine Research: An Interdiciplinary Overview of Current Research in Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 2011, Vol 50, 11598-11620 by the following authors (of which two are from KTH, Jonsson and Kloo):

Prof. Frithjof C. Küpper, Dr. Martin C. Feiters, Prof. Berit Olofsson, Dr. Tatsuo Kaiho, Prof. Shozo Yanagida, Prof. Michael B. Zimmermann, Prof. Lucy J. Carpenter, Prof. George W. Luther III, Dr. Zunli Lu, Prof. Mats Jonsson and Prof. Lars Kloo

Ulrica and Ann-Christine

This year's innovation scholarships from The City of Stockholm have been appointed. Nine inventors receive prizes for exciting ideas with great prospects 

Ulrica Edlund and Ann-Christine Albertsson are two of the receivers of the city of Stockholm’s innovation scholarships. The scholarships are administered by the City Commissioner of Stockholm’s Enterprise and Labour Market, Ulla Hamilton (M) during a ceremony in Stockholm’s City Hall.

Read more here (in Swedish).

The French embassy in Sweden and the Swedish-French research association, AFSR, has for the third consecutive year appointed four young researchers winners of the French-Swedish science prize for young scientists.

Haining Tian, post doc at the Division of Organic Chemistry is appointed second prize in the class Imprints of Transport- energy- and water supplies on urban landscapes for his research in durable solutions for the development of photo electro chemical solar cells.

Read more here (pdf in Swedish)

The ceremony will take place the 29th of November at the French residence. The same day the winners will present their work at a seminar at KTH.

Time: The 29th of November, 14:30-16:30 at lecture hall F3, Lindstedtsvägen 26).

Registration: frenchswedishprize@ambafrance-se.org

The seminar is open to everyone