Popular scientific abstract:
Metals can be used as catalysts to mediate the formation of chemical compounds. Insights into such reactions can be obtained with computational methods. In my PhD work, I used quantum chemistry to study the metalcatalyzed formation of chemicals that are important for the pharmaceutical industry.
Part of my work focused on using the metal rhodium to activate CO2 towards making new bonds. This work is important because CO2 is a promising carbon source that can replace fossil carbon in the chemical industry. My results show that CO2 is activated without binding to rhodium. This insight can help in the design of CO2 reactions that are selective for a certain product. Rhodium is expensive and chemists are trying to replace it with the cheaper metal cobalt.
Part of my work focused on cobalt-catalyzed hydrogenation reactions. My results show that cobalt catalysts can access many different reaction pathways. Knowledge about these pathways can help in the design of better cobalt catalysts.
Supervisors:
- Associate Professor Kathrin H. Hopmann, IK, UiT (main supervisor)
- Professor Luca Frediani, IK, UiT
Evaluation committee:
-
Professor Per-Ola Norrby, AstraZeneca, Sweden (1. opponent)
- Dr. Maria Besora Bonet, Department of Physical and Inorganic Chemistry, Universitat Rovira I Virgili (URV), Spain (2. opponent)
- Associate professor Marius Myreng Haugland, Department of Chemistry, UiT (internal member and leader of the committee)
The defence will be stream using Mediasite: https://mediasite.uit.no/Mediasite/Catalog/Full/c4a3a205535a467aadb7775277096c8521
For more information, visit the web pages at the University of Tromsø - The Arctic University of Norway