News

Publication

New publication

Our newest paper, entitled “Photocatalytic carboxylation of organic substrates with carbon dioxide at zinc sulfide with deposited ruthenium nanoparticles, has been published in ChemPlusChem(Tomasz Baran, Angela Dibenedetto, Michele Aresta, Krzysztof Kruczała, Wojciech Macyk,ChemPlusChem 2014, 79, 708-715). It describes a photocatalytic synthesis of carboxylic acids using CO2 and acetylacetone as substrates in the presence of ZnS-based photocatalysts with deposited ruthenium(0) nanoparticles. The paper has been published in the Early Career Series, the program of ChemPlusChem journal presenting original papers of young scientists nominated by the Editorial Board. Presented studies have been done in cooperation with the group from Bari.

Group meeting

Group trip

To activate not only small molecules, but also minds and bodies, on April 11-12th we enjoyed a trip to Pieniny mountains. We spent two nice days hiking in this beautiful area. (Everybody reached Trzy Korony.)

Equipment

New equipement!

Our group has got a new equipment for advanced photoelectrochemical measurements. The specially designed set-up enables measurements of photocurrents as a function of the electrode potential and wavelength of incident light. In addition, the Kelvin probe can be used to characterize redox properties of studied semiconductors in the dark and upon irradiation with monochromatic light.

Equipment

SEM purchase

Our group has received a scanning electron microscope TESCAN VEGA3 LMU. The microscope is equipped with LaB6 cathode, SE, BSE and EDX detectors and enables measurements in a low vacuum mode (up to 500 Pa). The analyzed samples can be gold-coated in a high quality desk-top coater.

General

Conferences

In September and October our results were presented at several conferences in Poland and abroad:

General

Second recruitment for TEAM

The second recruitment procedure has been finished and the new TEAM members have been selected:

Dr. Kezhen Qi (post-doc)

Kacper Pilarczyk (student)

Małgorzata Kubiak (student)

Michał Kawa (student)

We would like to acknowledge everybody who applied. The last recruitment will be announced in spring 2014.

General

Welcome back!

Dr. Joanna Kuncewicz came back after a long (30 months) post-doctoral leave to Sapporo, Hokkaido University (group of Prof. Bunsho Ohtani).