The Disputation will be live streamed for everyone else.
The livestream will be activated 15 minutes before the Defence starts.
Trial lecture
August 12th, 10:15 AM, Auditorium 3, Chemistry building
Trial lecture title:
‘’EPR of organic radicals and transition metal complexes: short introduction and examples of analysis of EPR spectra’’
The trial lecture will be live streamed for everyone else.
The livestream will be activated 15 minutes before the trial lecture starts.
Conferral summary
Avhandlingen beskriver syntese og spektroskopiske studier av kobberkomplekser. Noen av kompleksene har blitt inkorporert i metallorganiske rammeverk. Målet med dette er å lage et materiale som minner om inspirasjonskilden sin fra naturen, et enzymatisk aktivt sete.
Main research findings
Methanol may play a central role as a fuel in the future. It can be generated from natural gas, methane, by oxidising one of its four C-H bonds. However, one easily oxidises it all the way- commonly referred to as burning. The current methods are energy consuming, calling for improved ways to perform the reaction. Ideally, the green-house gas methane is oxidised with oxygen from the air. A great teacher on how to control the degree of oxidation is nature. A class of copper-based enzymes is capable of selective C-H bond oxidation. In this thesis, artificial copper complexes were made that carry structural aspects of the enzyme. In addition to developing recipes for making these complexes, the work investigated how they interact with themselves. In solution, one of the complexes could be found alone, in pairs or in bigger groups. Some of the complexes reacted with oxygen, which made them change colour from brown to green or from yellow to red. Both colour changes were found to originate from oxidation of copper, the first step of the intended process. Preliminary tests with another hydrocarbon, cyclohexane, showed that the complexes were capable to oxidise C-H bonds.