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Direct formation of copper nanoparticles from atoms at graphitic step edges lowers overpotential and improves selectivity of electrocatalytic CO2 reduction (2024)
Journal Article
Burwell, T., Thangamuthu, M., Aliev, G. N., Ghaderzadeh, S., Kohlrausch, E. C., Chen, Y., …Khlobystov, A. N. (2024). Direct formation of copper nanoparticles from atoms at graphitic step edges lowers overpotential and improves selectivity of electrocatalytic CO2 reduction. Communications Chemistry, 7(1), Article 140. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42004-024-01218-y

A key strategy for minimizing our reliance on precious metals is to increase the fraction of surface atoms and improve the metal-support interface. In this work, we employ a solvent/ligand/counterion-free method to deposit copper in the atomic form d... Read More about Direct formation of copper nanoparticles from atoms at graphitic step edges lowers overpotential and improves selectivity of electrocatalytic CO2 reduction.

Unravelling synergistic effects in bi-metallic catalysts: deceleration of palladium–gold nanoparticle coarsening in the hydrogenation of cinnamaldehyde (2023)
Journal Article
Pinto, J., Weilhard, A., Norman, L. T., Lodge, R. W., Rogers, D. M., Gual, A., …Alves Fernandes, J. (2023). Unravelling synergistic effects in bi-metallic catalysts: deceleration of palladium–gold nanoparticle coarsening in the hydrogenation of cinnamaldehyde. Catalysis Science and Technology, https://doi.org/10.1039/d3cy00289f

In this work, we demonstrate that the synergistic effect of PdAu nanoparticles (NPs) in hydrogenation reactions is not only related to high activity but also to their stability when compared to Pd mono-metallic NPs. To demonstrate this, a series of m... Read More about Unravelling synergistic effects in bi-metallic catalysts: deceleration of palladium–gold nanoparticle coarsening in the hydrogenation of cinnamaldehyde.

Exploring ionic liquids based on pyrrolidinium and imidazolium cations with low toxicity towards Escherichia coli for designing sustainable bioprocesses (2022)
Journal Article
Hernández-Fernández, F. J., de los Ríos, A. P., Licence, P., & Stephens, G. (2022). Exploring ionic liquids based on pyrrolidinium and imidazolium cations with low toxicity towards Escherichia coli for designing sustainable bioprocesses. Journal of Biotechnology, 360, 192-197. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbiotec.2022.11.001

Ionic liquids (ILs) are widely applied in many bioprocesses involving microorganisms due to their unique properties. In this work, the toxicity of imidazolium and pyrrolidinium ionic liquids towards E. coli., a bacterium for which there are limited t... Read More about Exploring ionic liquids based on pyrrolidinium and imidazolium cations with low toxicity towards Escherichia coli for designing sustainable bioprocesses.

X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy of morpholinium ionic liquids: impact of a long alkyl side substituent on the cation-anion interactions (2022)
Journal Article
Men, S., Sun, Y., Licence, P., & Qu, J. (2022). X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy of morpholinium ionic liquids: impact of a long alkyl side substituent on the cation-anion interactions. Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, 24(40), 24845-24851. https://doi.org/10.1039/d2cp03674f

In this study, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy is used to analyse nine morpholinium ionic liquids, which are of great interest in green chemistry because of their low toxicity and high recyclability. The effect of the alkyl chain length on the aliph... Read More about X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy of morpholinium ionic liquids: impact of a long alkyl side substituent on the cation-anion interactions.

Rate of Formation of Industrial Lubricant Additive Precursors from Maleic Anhydride and Polyisobutylene (2022)
Journal Article
Streets, J., Proust, N., Parmar, D., Walker, G., Licence, P., & Woodward, S. (2022). Rate of Formation of Industrial Lubricant Additive Precursors from Maleic Anhydride and Polyisobutylene. Organic Process Research and Development, 26(9), 2749-2755. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.oprd.2c00207

The Alder-ene reaction of neat polyisobutylene (PIB) and maleic anhydride (MAA) to produce the industrially important lubricant additive precursor polyisobutylene succinic anhydride (PIBSA) is studied at 150-180 °C. Under anaerobic conditions with [P... Read More about Rate of Formation of Industrial Lubricant Additive Precursors from Maleic Anhydride and Polyisobutylene.

Halometallate ionic liquids: thermal properties, decomposition pathways, and life cycle considerations (2022)
Journal Article
Clarke, C. J., Baaqel, H., Matthews, R. P., Chen, Y., Lovelock, K. R., Hallett, J. P., & Licence, P. (2022). Halometallate ionic liquids: thermal properties, decomposition pathways, and life cycle considerations. Green Chemistry, 24(15), 5800-5812. https://doi.org/10.1039/d2gc01983c

Halometallate ionic liquids provide new opportunities for industrial catalytic processes because of their unique blend of physical and chemical properties. Tunability underpins the success of ionic liquids because small structural changes can have dr... Read More about Halometallate ionic liquids: thermal properties, decomposition pathways, and life cycle considerations.

High Yielding Continuous-Flow Synthesis of Norketamine (2022)
Journal Article
Hernando, M. V., Moore, J. C., Howie, R. A., Castledine, R. A., Bourne, S. L., Jenkins, G. N., …George, M. W. (2022). High Yielding Continuous-Flow Synthesis of Norketamine. Organic Process Research and Development, 26(4), 1145-1151. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.oprd.1c00407

A new continuous-flow process is presented for synthesis of the pharmaceutical intermediate norketamine (5). Our approach has been to take the well-established and industrially applied batch synthetic route to this promising antidepressant precursor... Read More about High Yielding Continuous-Flow Synthesis of Norketamine.

Diffuse Reflection Infrared Fourier Transform Spectroscopy and Partial Least Squares Regression Analysis for Temperature Prediction of Irreversible Thermochromic Paints (2022)
Journal Article
Kitagawa, A., Welsh, C., Mackilligin, H., & Licence, P. (2022). Diffuse Reflection Infrared Fourier Transform Spectroscopy and Partial Least Squares Regression Analysis for Temperature Prediction of Irreversible Thermochromic Paints. Applied Spectroscopy, https://doi.org/10.1177/00037028211065759

Temperature measurement of internal components of a jet engine is a crucial control parameter to ensure its component life and efficiency. Particularly for thermal analysis of internal components of jet engines, irreversible thermochromic paints (TPs... Read More about Diffuse Reflection Infrared Fourier Transform Spectroscopy and Partial Least Squares Regression Analysis for Temperature Prediction of Irreversible Thermochromic Paints.

Experimental measurement and prediction of ionic liquid ionisation energies (2021)
Journal Article
Seymour, J. M., Gousseva, E., Large, A. I., Clarke, C. J., Licence, P., Fogarty, R. M., …Lovelock, K. R. J. (2021). Experimental measurement and prediction of ionic liquid ionisation energies. Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, 23(37), 20957-20973. https://doi.org/10.1039/d1cp02441h

Ionic liquid (IL) valence electronic structure provides key descriptors for understanding and predicting IL properties. The ionisation energies of 60 ILs are measured and the most readily ionised valence state of each IL (the highest occupied molecul... Read More about Experimental measurement and prediction of ionic liquid ionisation energies.

Linking the the thermal and electronic properties of functional dicationic salts with their molecular structures (2021)
Journal Article
Clarke, C. J., Morgan, P. J., Hallett, J. P., & Licence, P. (2021). Linking the the thermal and electronic properties of functional dicationic salts with their molecular structures. ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering, 9(18), 6224-6234. https://doi.org/10.1021/acssuschemeng.0c08564

The two major properties that underpin ionic liquids are tunability and the potential to create task-specific media. Together, these properties allow ionic liquids to surpass the roles long held by traditional molecular solvents. However, at elevated... Read More about Linking the the thermal and electronic properties of functional dicationic salts with their molecular structures.

Shaping Effective Practices for Incorporating Sustainability Assessment in Manuscripts Submitted to ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering: An Initiative by the Editors (2021)
Journal Article
Subramaniam, B., Licence, P., Moores, A., & Allen, D. T. (2021). Shaping Effective Practices for Incorporating Sustainability Assessment in Manuscripts Submitted to ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering: An Initiative by the Editors. ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering, 9(11), 3977-3978. https://doi.org/10.1021/acssuschemeng.1c01511

Ionic Liquids-Cobalt(II) Thermochromic Complexes: How the Structure Tunability Affects "self-Contained" Systems (2021)
Journal Article
Billeci, F., Gunaratne, H. Q., Licence, P., Seddon, K. R., Plechkova, N. V., & D'Anna, F. (2021). Ionic Liquids-Cobalt(II) Thermochromic Complexes: How the Structure Tunability Affects "self-Contained" Systems. ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering, 9(11), 4064-4075. https://doi.org/10.1021/acssuschemeng.0c08586

With the aim of obtaining thermochromic systems with potential applications in solar energy storage, we evaluated the behavior of some sugar-based ionic liquids (ILs)-Co(NTf2)2 complexes, in IL solution, as a function of temperature. Different struct... Read More about Ionic Liquids-Cobalt(II) Thermochromic Complexes: How the Structure Tunability Affects "self-Contained" Systems.

Molecular Control of the Catalytic Properties of Rhodium Nanoparticles in Supported Ionic Liquid Phase (SILP) Systems (2020)
Journal Article
Bordet, A., Moos, G., Welsh, C., Licence, P., Luska, K. L., & Leitner, W. (2020). Molecular Control of the Catalytic Properties of Rhodium Nanoparticles in Supported Ionic Liquid Phase (SILP) Systems. ACS Catalysis, 10(23), 13904-13912. https://doi.org/10.1021/acscatal.0c03559

Rhodium nanoparticles (NPs) immobilized on imidazolium-based supported ionic liquid phases (Rh@SILP) act as effective catalysts for the hydrogenation of biomass-derived furfuralacetone. The structure of ionic liquid-type (IL) molecular modifiers was... Read More about Molecular Control of the Catalytic Properties of Rhodium Nanoparticles in Supported Ionic Liquid Phase (SILP) Systems.

Thermolysis of Organofluoroborate Ionic Liquids to NHC-Organofluoroborates (2020)
Journal Article
Clarke, C. J., Richardson, N., Firth, A. E., Hallett, J. P., & Licence, P. (2020). Thermolysis of Organofluoroborate Ionic Liquids to NHC-Organofluoroborates. ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering, 8(44), 16386–16390. https://doi.org/10.1021/acssuschemeng.0c06377

A range of dialkylimidazolium organotrifluoroborate ionic liquids were prepared by anion metathesis from newly available potassium organotrifluoroborate salts, and their physical properties were characterized by TGA, DSC, and STA. Thermal decompositi... Read More about Thermolysis of Organofluoroborate Ionic Liquids to NHC-Organofluoroborates.

Probing the impact of the N3-substituted alkyl chain on the electronic environment of the cation and the anion for 1,3-dialkylimidazolium ionic liquids (2020)
Journal Article
Men, S., Jin, Y., & Licence, P. (2020). Probing the impact of the N3-substituted alkyl chain on the electronic environment of the cation and the anion for 1,3-dialkylimidazolium ionic liquids. Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, 22(30), 17394-17400. https://doi.org/10.1039/d0cp02325f

In this study, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy is used to probe the impact of the N3-substituted alkyl group on the electronic environment of the cation and the anion by comparing two types of imidazolium cations, 1-alkyl-3-butylimidazolium and 1-al... Read More about Probing the impact of the N3-substituted alkyl chain on the electronic environment of the cation and the anion for 1,3-dialkylimidazolium ionic liquids.

Tuning the Cation-Anion Interactions by Methylation of the Pyridinium Cation: An X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy Study of Picolinium Ionic Liquids (2020)
Journal Article
Men, S., Licence, P., Luo, H., & Dai, S. (2020). Tuning the Cation-Anion Interactions by Methylation of the Pyridinium Cation: An X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy Study of Picolinium Ionic Liquids. Journal of Physical Chemistry B, 124(30), 6657-6663. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcb.0c05872

X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy is used to investigate the impact of methylation on the electronic environment of pyridinium cations. Because of the electron-donating effect of the methyl group, there is a significant increase in electron density on... Read More about Tuning the Cation-Anion Interactions by Methylation of the Pyridinium Cation: An X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy Study of Picolinium Ionic Liquids.