News
October 2023:
We have one PhD studentship in ultra-high field MAS NMR available that ideally suited for a student interested in new NMR approaches and technologies. Apply here
Congratulations to Lucia Corti for publishing here work on disorder and oxide ion diffusion in melilite in JACS - this is in Open Access here.
We welcome several new group members to the group this month. Ronan Cosquer is returning as a PhD student after their completed MChem project and will work on NMR in pharmaceutics. Kate Morrison and Jasmine Keith are starting their MChem projects in the group.
January 2022:
We have two PhD studentships in (DNP) MAS NMR available: one iCASE with Johnson Matthey on (DNP) MAS NMR and catalysis perfectly suited for a student interested in NMR and sustainable chemistries; one DTP focusing on DNP MAS NMR ideally suited for a student interested in new NMR approaches and technologies.
March 2021:
We’ll have an opening for a new Post Doc position in NMR and polymers soon - get in touch if interested !
A few papers out this month from the group. Congratulations to former PhD student Dr. Nick Brownbill and current PhD students Ben Duff and Ashlea Hughes for publishing collaborative works in J. Mat. Chem. A and Chem. Mater. and a Highlight in CrystChemEng.
Feb 2021:
We welcome Dr. Stuart Elliott to the group this month who will work on DNP enhanced NMR. Stuart graduated from Prof. Malcolm Levitt’s group at the University of Southampton working on long live nuclear spin state and performed postdoctoral work with Prof. Sami Jannin at the CRMN in Lyon working in dissolution DNP.
Jan 2021:
We have a PhD position available in the group in hyperpolarisation and very high field enhanced solid-state NMR of pharmaceutical formulations. Apply here.
Oct 2020:
We welcome Lucia Corti, Aine Black and George Wilson to the group this month. Lucia graduated with an MSc in Theoretical Chemistry from Uppsala Universitet and will continue our research efforts in NMR of fast solid ion conductors. Aine obtained her MSc in Physics from Queen’s University Belfast is in a collaborative PhD project with Dr. Maulik Patel in Engineering working on nuclear waste glass immobilisation materials. George will carry out his MChem research project on atomic scale understanding of recycled polymers.
Also this month, Frédéric attended the virtual PANIC conference in CA and shared the group of the group on DNP NMR.
May - July 2020:
Frédéric contributed to a number of Webinar series this month (RSC Porous Materials Interest Group, MIT Kong Ooi Tan / Bob Griffin NMR, Faraday Institution Technology) covering pretty much all recent work performed by the group. Many thanks to Tom Bennett, Kong Ooi Tan and Bob Griffin, and John Griffin for the various invitations.
May 2020:
We have a Post-Doctoral Research Associate position available in DNP MAS NMR funded by the Leverhulme Trust. Check here for further details and how to apply.
March 2020:
Frédéric could not travel to the 61st ENC in Baltimore but gave his invited talk entitled “Zeolites Heteregeneous Catalysts Caught in the Act by (DNP) MAS NMR” online. Many thanks to the organiser for the invitation.
Jan 2020:
Federica presented a poster at the Reaction Monitoring Symposium at the University of Bath and highlighted the UKRI-funded network Connect NMR UK.
Dec 2019:
I am delighted to report that the UK Solid-State NMR National Research Facility combining the existing 850 MHz Facility with the world leading 1 GHz NMR dedicated to solids has been funded by EPSRC and BBSRC. This strategic UK infrastructure will enable the next generation of challenges in the physical, materials and life sciences to be tackled. Congratulations to Prof. Steven Brown and the other CoIs from 5 HEIs.
Congratulations to Prof. Steven Brown for securing funding to setup the 1st 1 GHz NMR spectrometer dedicated to solids as well as to all other investigators for complementary NMR facilities.
Congratulations to Andrea Pugliese for publishing his 1st paper in Magn. Reson. Chem. paper.
Ben, Fred and Federica presented posters at the RSC Solid state Chemistry meeting organised at the University of Liverpool and demonstrated the benefits of NMR in probing physical properties.
Most of the group attended the RSC NMR DG Christmas and the IOP BRSG NMR meetings in London. Federica highlighted the Connect NMR UK network at both events and Fred gave a talk “A Solid state NMR perspective on new ionic conductors” at the IOP meeting.
Congratulations to Dr Dong Xiao for successfully passing his PhD viva on 09 December 2019. Many thanks for Dr. Anne Lesage for acting as external examiner and Dr. Aggi Steiner for the internal examination.
The group enjoyed a lovely Christmas do on 06 December 2020 in Liverpool city center. Check out the pictures !
Nov 2019:
We welcome back Dong Xiao to the group for a few weeks doing some more MAS DNP NMR work.
Federica attended the Bruker user meeting this month highlighting the new opportunities arising from Connect NMR UK.
Oct 2019:
We are hiring !! We have a new PhD studentship available. Check out the details here.
Busy month ahead with the installation of the 1st few solid state NMR probes at the 800 facility at the University of Liverpool.
Congratulations to Dr. Jacinthe Gamon (from the Rosseinsky group) and Ben Duff for their paper on Li3AlS3 in Chem. Mater.
Andrea has started his placement at BMS exploring new NMR approaches to study APIs. Thanks for EPSRC for funding via the NPIF scheme.
Sept 2019:
We warmly welcome three new members of the group this month.
Sophie Ahern and Brendon Chesterfield are starting their Master’s project in the lab and will learn some exciting solid-state NMR experiments.
Dr. Federica Aiello is also joining us from the Netherlands as the research project manager of the EPSRC, BBSRC and MRC-funded Connect NMR UK network.
July 2019:
We say goodbye to Erasmus student Marco Farina who spent the last 4 months in the lab. Marco is going back to Pavia to finish his Master’s degree.
As part of a wide collaborative effort with the Dyer and Rosseinsky groups, we have just published a paper in Chem. Mater. on a high content of oxygen interstitial defects in framework oxides having the langasite structure. Check out the cool multinuclear 17O and 71Ga NMR data, many of them recorded at the UK 850 MHz Solid-state NMR Facility.
June 2019:
Congratulations to PhD student Andrea for receiving the runner up best poster prize for his work presented at the Univ of York as part of the RSC PGR NMR meeting on 21st June 2019.
Congratulations to MChem students Adam Hayward and Matthew Treadell for being awarded an MChem degree in Chemistry from the University of Liverpool. We wish them well in their new adventures.
A collaborative paper with the Rosseinsky group is out in J. Catal.
May 2019:
Congratulations to group alumnus Dr. Nick Brownbill for publishing a paper on direct 89Y DNP in J. Phys. Chem. Lett. this month, in collaboration with Drs. Daniel Lee and Gaël de Paëpe from Grenoble.
April 2019:
Congratulations to PhD student Dong Xiao for publishing his 3rd 1st author papers in RSC Advances identifying different carbenium ion intermediates in two zeolites possessing identical CHA topology (H-SAPO-34 and H-SSZ- 13) during the methanol to olefins reaction. Paper accessible here.
Congratulations to MChem students Adam Hayward and Matthew Treadell for giving great talks during the MChem talks day !
We welcome Marco Farina from Pavia Uni in Italy who is on the Erasmus program. He will train in solid-state NMR probing Li ion dynamics.
Congratulations to PhD student Ashlea Hughes who gave an excellent talk on NMR crystallography at the 850 MHz solid-state NMR symposium in Warwick.
We are delighted to receive EPSRC-BBSRC-MRC funding with Profs. Craig Butts (Bristol) and Christina Redfield (Oxford), on behalf of the UK NMR community, to coordinate Connect NMR UK, a National NMR Network for the Physical and Life Sciences.
January 2018:
We welcome Rory Powell to the group for his 3rd year MChem research project working on ZIF and being introduce to research.
December 2018:
The group enjoyed a lovely Christmas drink and dinner at Cosy Club in Liverpool city centre at the end of term - check out the picture on the Photos page.
Fred attended the 2018 IOP BRSG meeting and chaired a session at the 2018 NMRDG RSC conference in London. He is also joining this committee from 2019.
November 2018:
Congratulations to Dr. Nick Brownbill for passing successfully his PhD viva. Thanks to Jeremy Titman (Nottingham) for being the external examiner and Tom McDonald for being the internal examiner.
Congratulations to Dong Xiao which 2018 Chem. Sci. has been selected as Back Cover by the editors of the journal.
October 2018:
The group has a new twitter account @DrFredericBlanc - Follow us !
We say good bye to Elena Fischer who has been in the group over the summer working on Li NMR and funded by the German DAAD funding scheme.
Well done to Ken Inglis who has also published a collaborative paper with Prof. Tony West in Sheffield on a new Li5SiO4F phase having Li+ and no F- mobility. Paper is accessible here.
Congratulations to Dong Xiao who has published his work on detecting carbocations on zeolites in Chem. Sci. Check it out here. A press release has also been issued by the journal following the paper being selected as Pick of the Week by the editors of Chem. Sci.
September 2018:
A collaborative paper on new sulfides Li ion conductors with the Rosseinsky group is out in Chem. Mater. here. 7Li relaxometry NMR data demonstrates experimentally 2D Li+ diffusion pathways.
We welcome back Matthew Treadell and new comer Adam Hayward to the group for their MChem research project. Matthew will work on NMR crystallography while Adam will explore spin liquids in collaboration with Lucy Clark.
Prof. Hua Huo from HIT (China) and her student Zeyu Lin are visiting the lab this month as part of a Royal Society Exchange Grant.
The group is growing ! We pleased to welcome two new PhD students this month. Ben Griffiths is a graduate from St Andrews University and is funded jointly by the Leverhulme Research Centre for Functional Materials Design and the Department of Chemistry. Ben Duff is a graduate from Leeds University and is funded by the solid state battery project of the Faraday Institute.
Fred travelled to Southampton and Kent to attend the hyperpolarization HYP18 and the CCNP meetings, respectively, and presented a poster on DNP for insensitive nuclei.
August 2018:
Fred and Ashlea attended the 7th EuChemS congress in Liverpool this month. Ashlea gave a well received talk on ultra fast molecular rotors within porous organic cages while Fred discussed the latest advances in DNP NMR for supramolecular assemblies. Some of the social activities included a Beatles concert and a banquet.
We welcome Elena Fischer to the group as part of a summer internship funded by the German DAAD RISE program. She will learn solid state NMR and probe Li+ dynamics.
July 2018:
This month Fred travelled to Xi’an, Harbin and Dalian in China in a program of research and knowledge exchange to setup new collaborations in catalysis, including the opening of a new join XJTU - Liverpool catalysis lab. He also caught up with student Dong Xiao and former postdoc fellow of the Grey group Prof. Hua Huo.
Ashlea gave a talk in a Liverpool porous materials symposium on her work in 2H NMR and molecular rotors in porous organic cages.
Congratulations to Ryan Hillary for obtaining the best mark for his CHEM480 MChem research project in the group.
June 2018:
Ashlea and Andrea attended the RSC PGNMR meeting in Warwick. Congratulations to Ashlea for receiving the runner up prize for her talk on 2H NMR and molecular rotors.
May 2018:
Excellent news: the Department has risen to 2nd in the Guardian league table.
I am delighted to have been funded with Prof. Lu-Yun Lian and Drs. Igor Barsukov, Jon Iggo and Konstantin Luzyanin by EPSRC to upgrade the high field 800 MHz NMR spectrometer at Liverpool to strategically enable extended liquid state NMR and new solid state NMR capabilities - check out the EPSRC and University press releases for further details.
Congratulations to Prof. Steven Brown for securing funding to setup the 1st 1 GHz NMR spectrometer dedicated to solids as well as to all other investigators for complementary NMR facilities.
Collaborative JACS paper out with colleagues in Zhejiang, Southampton, Kanazawa and Liverpool universities out - link here.
Congratulations to Matthew for a really nice talk as part of his 3rd year research project.
April 2018:
Congratulations to Ryan for giving an excellent talk at the year 4 research project CHEM480 talks day and showcasing paramagnetic NMR spectroscopy.
Many thanks to staff from the Center for Nano Energy Materials from Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, China for visiting the Stephenson Institute and presenting their works.
Ashlea, Andrea and Fred travelled to the University of Warwick to attend the annual 850 MHz solid state NMR symposium. Fred gave a talk on the group’s work in exploiting solid state NMR in fast Li and Na ion conductors
Congratulations to Nick Brownbill for publishing his DNP polymer work in Macromolecules this month ! Check it out here. Many thanks to Bruker for supporting this work as well as collaborators in Liverpool and Manchester.
Fred will be giving a pub talk on magnetic resonance during the Pint of Science festival in May 14th at the Hus pub in Liverpool city centre - more info at https://pintofscience.co.uk/event/invisible-science
March 2018:
A catalysis paper with colleagues Dr. Aggi Steiner and Prof. Ivan Kozhevnikov is out now in Applied Catalysis B at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0926337318301954
Great turn out for the Faculty of Science and Engineering poster day ! Ashlea presented her work on ultra fast molecular rotors in organic cages.
Fantastic day of science at the “Advanced ceramics for Energy Applications” workshop organized in Liverpool by the UK chapter of the American Ceramic Society.
Feb 2018:
A collaborative paper with Prof. Sharon Ashbrook from Saint Andrews is out now in RSC Advances.
Jan 2018:
We welcome project students Dylan Dunkerley and Matthew Treadell to group who will be introduced to research methods as part of their 3rd year.
Congratulations to Dr. Lucienne Buannic who publish her work on proton distribution in Sc-doped BaZrO3.
This month we say goodbye to Nancy Madueke who has finished her MSc project.
Dec 2017:
再见 Dong !
After 2 great years in the lab, Dong is leaving to finish his dual PhD program at DICP in China. Leaving party picture available under Photos.
Most of the group travelled to London to attend both the BRSG NMR and NMR DG meetings organized by the IOP and the RSC. Fred gave a talk at the BRSG NMR meeting. Always good to catch up with the community.
Blanc group Christmas’ dinner at The Hub in Liverpool city centre ! Check out the pictures. Thanks to Nick for organizing.
Many thanks to Dr Cristina Tealdi from Dipartimento di Chimica at Università degli Studi di Pavia in Italy for her talk and visit.
Nov 2017: Congratulations to Dr. Gunwoo Kim, with whom Frédéric works as a postdoc, for publishing his work on CsH(PO3H) - this could be found here
Oct 2017: A couple more papers from the group this month. Congratulations to Ashlea who published her 1st paper in Chemistry, A European Journal on molecular rotors in porous organic cages which was probed by 2H and 13C NMR (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/chem.201704964/full).
On Oct 24th, a collaborative paper on Covalent Amide Frameworks with the Rosseinsky group is published in Nature Communications: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-01423-5
We welcome Mr Andrea Pugliese as a PhD student in the group this month. Andrea comes from the Università degli Studi di Milano in Italy.
Congratulations to Dong who published his 1st paper in Chem. Sci. in the identification of the carbeniums ion formed during the methanol-to-olefins reaction and their locations in the ZSM-5 zeolite framework is published in Chem. Sci. this month: http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2017/sc/c7sc03657d#!divAbstract
Sept 2017: Dong and Nick attended the 2017 Alpine Conference on Solid-state NMR in Chamonix (France) and gave round table talks on their work.
Prof. Hua Huo visited the group again this month and performed NMR experiments on a range of magnetic field strenghts.
We welcome back Ryan Hillary to the group for his MChem CHEM480 research projects as well as Natalie Bavis for her MSc project; they will both work on paramagnetic NMR.
July 2017: Frédéric attended the 20th ISMAR meeting in Québec and presented some 17O DNP work at very high field. Other contribution to the group included some 129Xe work on MOF which was also accepted for publication in J. Phys. Chem. C (http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.jpcc.7b06006)
Frédéric published a highlight of natural abundance 17O DNP work from the Pruski group in Angew. Chem. Check it out at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.201705933/abstract;jsessionid=B876F65D2BFE2F83383EEB5210AFED0D.f02t03
Frédéric and Ken attend the MC13 conference in Liverpool and Ken presents a poster on his work in La3Li3W2O12
Group bonding around mini golf at the old Cains brewery in Liverpool. Check out the pictures !
June 2017: The group attended the RSC NMR DG Postgraduate Meeting 2017 at the University of Strathclyde and presented a range of posters. Congratulations to Nick for winning a poster prize !
Frédéric gave a couple of talks on Na and Li ion dynamics at the 21st conference on Solid State Ionics in Italy. Many thanks to Prof. Vito Di Noto and his team for the organisation.
We welcome Abigail Mills and Ryan Hillary to the group for research summer projects funded by the EPSRC and the Analytical Chemistry Trust Fund.
May 2017: We are hiring ! One new PhD studentship sponsored by a large pharmaceutical company is available in the group. Check out the Jobs page.
Chemistry at Liverpool ranked 7th according to the Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/education/ng-interactive/2017/may/16/university-guide-2018-league-table-for-chemistry
April 2017: A feature article on DNP work at 18.8 T appears on the Bruker Resonance newsletter https://www.theresonance.com/quadrupolar-nuclei-hyperpolarization/
The group enjoyed a trip to the University of Warwick and attended the 2017 annual symposium of the UK 850 MHz solid state NMR facility.
March 2017: A paper on Ag-based MOF in collaboration with Prof Scott Oliver from the University of California at Santa Cruz is out in Dalton Trans - check it out at Dalton Transactions, 2017, DOI: 10.1039/C7DT00475C.
Ken is back to Warwick to performed some 13C CP MAS experiments at very high field !
February 2017: Frédéric is awarded the joint BRSG - NMRDG Annual Prize for Excellent Contribution to Magnetic Resonance from the Institute of Physics and the Royal Society of Chemistry. More information available on the Department of Chemistry and the NMRDG website.
A feature article about the activity of the group is available in the newsletter of the Knowledge Center for Materials Chemistry
Ken travelled to the 850 MHz NMR facility to perform a range of experiments including very fast MAS and MQMAS on various nuclei (eg 17O).
We celebrated the Chinese New Year this month and tasted some unusual food including some (lovely) jelly fish ! It was also the occasion to say bye to Dr Shutao Xu who spent the last few months in the lab thanks to a fellowship from the China Scholarship council.
January 2017: We welcome 3rd year undergraduate student Ryan Hillary to the group this month. He will learn solid state NMR and be involved in a diffusion NMR project.
Congratulations to Nick who publish his work on oxygen-17 DNP at 18.8 T in Chem. Comm. ! Available at http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2017/cc/c6cc09743j#!divAbstract
December 2016: Dong and Shutao travelled to the Nottingham MAS DNP NMR Facility this month to carry out some 13C NMR experiments. Thanks to Subradip for all his help.
The group attended both RSC NMR DG and the BRSG Magnetic Resonance conference in London and listened to the latest UK NMR research.
The group enjoyed a night out in celebration of Christmas with dinner in Liverpool city centre - check out the pictures ! Thanks Nick for the organisation.
November 2016: Hua and Ken spent some time at the 850 MHz this month to run some 47,59Ti NMR experiments.
Frédéric was invited by Prof Derek Sinclair from the Department of Materials and Engineering at the University of Sheffield and gave a talk on the DNP work of the group.
We welcome both Prof. Hua Huo from Harbin Institute of Technology and Dr. Shutao Xu from Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics to the group this month on Royal Society funded research projects.
Frédéric travelled to NJ this month to attend the Eastern Analytical Symposium and gave an invited talk in the DNP NMR session.
October 2016: We also welcome MSc student Nancy Madueke to the group.
Ken and Frédéric spent some time at the UK 850 MHz solid state NMR facility at the University of Warwick and performed a range of 17O NMR experiment.
We welcome Ashlea Hughes to the group this month who will investigate nanomaterials with NMR.
September 2016: Congratulations to Ken ! His latest work on probing Li dynamics on a new perovskite phase is published in Chem. Mater. Check it out at: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.chemmater.6b03220
Ken performed a range of 71Ga and 17O experiments on the UK 850 MHz solid state NMR spectrometer at the University of Warwick, including spinning samples up to 75 kHz.
Frédéric travelled to Bayreuth in Germany this month and attended SMARTER5 where he presented some work on Li ions transport probed by NMR.
August 2016: David Halat’s paper on 17O NMR of La2NiO4+d from Cambridge is out in JACS: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jacs.6b07348
We welcome summer student Elisabeth Verweyen to the group this month. Elisabeth comes from RWTH Aachen and is on RISE scholarship to learn some solid-state NMR spectroscopy.
July 2016: Frédéric visited collaborator Prof. Scott Oliver at UC Santa Cruz, CA, USA on July 23rd and caught up with former visiting student Ian Colinas. He also gave a talk on the DNP NMR work of the group work.
Nick, Ken and Frédéric attended the 2016 Rocky Mountain Conference on Magnetic Resonance in Breckenridge, CO. Ken gave a talk on his work on NMR of Li ion conductors, and Nick and Frédéric presented posters on DNP NMR of polymers and Na ion conductors. Congratulations to Nick and Ken who won the Jack E. Craw and 850 MHz UK facility travel grants, respectively.
Ken gave a talk on sodium strontium silicate fast sodium ion conductors at both the SFTC batteries annual meeting in Abingdon and the BRSG AGM and summer meeting at the Johnson Matthey Technology center.
June 2016: Many congratulations to Rachel who obtained her MChem degree in Chemistry with a very good 1st !
The group attended the RSC NMR DG Postgraduate Meeting 2016 in Oxford. Nick presented poster on his work while Ken gave a talk on sodium strontium silicate fast sodium ion conductors.
Frédéric gave a talk at the CDT Advanced Characterization of Materials at Imperial College London on June 17th and presented an introduction to NMR followed by some research highlights. Many thanks for the hospitality !
Group team bonding over a BBQ at home.
May 2016: Congratulations to project student Mohammad who gave his 3rd year project talk. Mohammad talked about his work on 13C NMR of MOFs.
Many thanks to Prof. Bettina Lotsch (MPI Stuttgart and LMU Munich) for visiting the department this month and giving a talk on “Molecular engineered frameworks for hydrogen evolution”
Congratulations to 2nd year PhD student Ken Inglis and 2015 MChem student John Corley for publishing their 1st paper in Chemistry of Materials on the understanding of the structure and the sodium dynamics in Na doped SrSiO3. Check it out here: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.chemmater.6b00941
April 2016: 4th year research project MChem talks day on 28/04/2016. Great talk by Rachel on 2H NMR of molecular rotors.
Great day in the Department on 27/04/2016 at the Advanced Porous Materials Symposium with talks from Prof. Tina Düren (Bath), Prof. Omar Fahra (Northwestern, IL) and Prof. Jeff Reimer (UC Berkeley, CA). Many thanks for visiting.
The group attended the 2016 Annual Symposium of the UK 850 MHz Solid-state NMR facility at the University of Warwick where Ken presented some of his results obtained at the facility.
Frédéric took part in the Macro Group UK Young Researchers Meeting organized by the Adam’s group at the University of Liverpool and presented a poster on DNP enhanced solid-state NMR of conjugated microporous polymers.
Frédéric gave an invited talk at the 4th Symposium on Advances in Li-Battery Research at the University of Bath and discuss some of the recent work of the group looking at fast Li ion conductors by lithium-7 NMR. Thanks to Dr. Benjamin J. Morgan for organizing this meeting.
March 2016: Dong and Nick travelled back to the DNP facility in Nottingham and carried out a range of DNP NMR experiments at 14.1 T. Check it the pictures !
A paper on Sc doped BaSnO3 that was initiated after an ECS conference and lead by Chalmers University in Sweden has now been accepted for publication in J. Mat. Chem. A. Check it out at http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2016/ta/c5ta09744d#!divAbstract
Feb 2016: We also had the visit of Bruker to finish the installation of our new 400 NMR spectrometer.
We welcome Mohammad Rehan Babar to the group this semester. Mohammad will carry out his 3rd year undergraduate research project and will learn about solid-state NMR spectroscopy.
Nick and Dong visited the DNP facility in Nottingham for the 1st time and carried out a number of NMR experiments on catalysts. The same week Ken travelled to the 850 MHz national UK solid state NMR facility at the University of Warwick to perform multidimensional NMR experiments.
Frédéric hosted Prof. Sharon Ashbrook from the School of Chemistry at the University of Saint Andrews on February 3rd. Sharon gave a talk entitled “Studying Disorder in Inorganic Solids: Exploiting Multinuclear and DFT Calculations” and had a chance to discuss with Ken, Nick and Dong about their research.
Jan 2016: We are pleased to welcome Dong Xiao to the group. Dong who is on an International Post Graduate Programme with Prof. Xinhe Bao from Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics and funded by BP is interested in DNP enhanced solid state NMR of catalysts.
Dec 2015: A paper on new conjugated polymer for catalytic hydrogen evolution lead by the Adams’ and Cooper’s groups where we contributed with some NMR structural elucidation before and after catalysis has been accepted for publication in Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Well done Nick !
One new PhD studentship is available in the group. Check out the Jobs page !
Frédéric attended the BRSG Christmas Meeting organized by the Institute of Physics in London this month and discussed some of the work with UK colleagues.
Ken and Frédéric travelled to Orléans this month and performed high temperature NMR on 7Li and 23Na to probe the dynamics of both Li and Na atoms in a range of materials. Many thanks to Dr. Pierre Florian for hosting us this week.
The £10M Leverhulme Centre for Functional Materials Design has been funded ! Further into here on the Department of Chemistry website or the Leverhulme Trust website.
Nov 2015: Dr. Frédérique Pourpoint and her student Raynald Giovine visited the group at the end of the month to carry out a series of 13C, 27Al and 129Xe NMR experiments at low temperature under magic angle spinning at 9.4 T.
Ken and Frédéric travelled to the UK 850 MHz National Solid-state NMR facility at the University of Warwick this month and performed a range of experiments including 6Li NMR, 17O MQMAS and 27Al homonuclear correlations.
A second paper on zeolitic imadazolate frameworks with Prof. Tony Cheetham’s group has been accepted for publication in Dalton Transactions, http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2015/dt/c5dt03477a#!divAbstract. Well done Emma for all your hard work on this and to Nick for all the carbon-13 and cadmium-113 NMR results.
Oct 2015: Great Chemistry 3rd year PhD students talks day on Oct 21st.
We have had the visit from Bruker multiple times this month to finish the installation of the latest inhabitant of the Department of Chemistry - check out the photos !
Sept 2015: We welcome back Rachel Lalek to the group for her MChem research project. She will be working on the understanding of the dynamics in organic cages using deuterium-2 and carbon-13 NMR experiments.
Frédéric attended the 2016 Recently Appointees in Materials Science meeting at Warwick University and discussed the exciting opportunities that Magnetic Resonance enables in the field of Materials Chemistry and beyond.
Nick’s collaborative paper with the Shchukin group from the Stephenson Institute for Renewable Energy at the University of Liverpool is out this month in ACS Appl. Mat. Interfaces http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acsami.5b08028 Well done all ! One news never comes alone and another paper with the Grey group at the University of Cambridge has also been published this month on the Li and O dynamics in Li2CO3 probes by 6,7Li and 17O NMR.
Ken spent time at the UK 850 MHz solid-state NMR facility this month and perform a range of experiments involving lithium-6, lithium-7, aluminium-27 and gallium-71.
Frédéric’s work with the Prof. Tony Cheetham’s group from the University of Cambridge on investigating the structural difference of zeolitic imadazolate frameworks polymorphs with high resolution solid state NMR has been accepted for publication in Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. Check it here: http://pubs.rsc.org/EN/content/articlelanding/2015/cp/c5cp02552d#!divAbstract
Aug 2015: Frédéric gave an invited talk at the Hyperpolarized Magnetic Resonance meeting in the Netherlands this month giving him the chance to discuss the group work on DNP enhanced solid state NMR spectroscopy of insensitive nuclei such as oxygen-17 and yttrium-89, and heared the latest development in the field. He also presented a poster on some of Nick’s work on DNP MAS NMR of polymeric materials.
We hosted Prof. Scott Oliver from the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of California at Santa Cruz on Aug 13th. Scott gave a departmental seminar and we thank him for unlighting us on new inorganic materials for environmental applications.
This month we say good by to Ian Colinas who spend the summer in the lab learning solid state NMR spectroscopy. All the best in the continuation of your PhD in Santa Cruz, CA !
July 2015: Frédéric chaired a session on the symposium on NMR applications in industry organised by Dr. Vasudevan Ramesh at the University of Manchester.
Ken performed very high temperature solid state NMR experiments at the CEMHTI in Orléans early in the month. Thanks to Aydar Rakhmatullin for the extensive technical assistance with the NMR hardware.
Frédéric visited Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics in China early this month to discuss our work on DNP and other applications of NMR in materials science. Thanks a lot to Dong Xiao, Prof. Xiuwen Han and Prof. Xinhe Bao for the hospitality.
June 2015: Nick attended the 2015 DNP summer school in Southampton this month and contributed with a poster on our work on DNP NMR of polymers.
We welcome Ian Colinas to the group this month. Ian is visiting us over the summer from the University of California at Santa Cruz to use solid state NMR and understand some of the chemistry in framework materials.
Frédéric travelled to Colorado mid June to attend the Solid State Ionics International Conference in Keystone where he gave a talk on the recent work on LiMgPO4 and a poster on some new research carried out in collaboration with the University of Illinois at Chicago and Imperial College London.
The beginning of the most marked the end of exams and the group gathered around a BBQ in Sefton Park to celebrate the success of all members. Check out the photo album and some great shot of the group playing Pétanque (a very popular “sport” in southern France) and Frisbee.
May 2015: Congratulations to Rachel who presented a very nice talk on her work carried out in the group during her 3rd year project looking at 13C chemical shift anisotropies of crystalline polymers as a function of temperature.
Congratulations to Riza Dervisoglu (with whom Frédéric worked as a postdoctoral fellow in both Stony Brook University and the University of Cambridge) who published his work on Ba2In2O4(OH)2 to Chem. Mater. (http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.chemmater.5b00328) this month.
April 2015: Congratulations to John who gave a successful talk to the MChem talk day in the Department at the end of the month.
Frédéric attended the ENC conference in California this month and gave a talk and a poster on “Dynamics Nuclear Polarization enhanced Solid-State NMR Spectroscopy of Challenging Nuclei”, followed by a few days in Boston with Nick.
Ken travelled to the UK 850 MHz solid-state NMR facility this month to perform a range of NMR experiments on quadrupolar nuclei on a series of fast ion conductors.
March 2015: Nick and Frédéric attended the annual UK 850 MHz solid-state NMR facility symposium at the University of Warwick in the midlands and discuss some of the recent work. Frédéric also gave a talk entitled “Investigating the Defect Chemistries in Fast Ion Conductors by Solid-State NMR Spectroscopy” highlighting a combination of unpublished and published work.
Congratulations to 3rd year student Rachel Lalek who has secured an EPSRC vacation bursary scholarship and will come back to the group this summer to investigate the motion of aromatic rings by variable temperature 2H NMR.
This month sees the publication in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jacs.5b00280) of a detailed analysis of the dynamics in protonic conductor CsH2PO4 using extensive oxygen-17 NMR data and following work that Frédéric carried out whilst in Cambridge with Prof. Clare P. Grey.
On March 11, the group enjoyed the visit of Prof. Scott Kroeker from the University of Manitoba in Canada who highlighted us on the “How NMR Spectroscopy is Improving Nuclear Waste Disposal”.
Feb. 2015: Michael and Mona’s work on Li dynamics in LiMgPO4 and In doped LiMgPO4 in collaboration with the Rosseinsky’s group has been accepted for publication in Chemistry of Materials. See http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/cm504518q for more details.
Frédéric gave a talk in the Stephenson Institute for Renewable Energy show casing the DNP NMR work from the group, and highlighting how this could be apply for the structural characterization of fast proton conductors.
A paper investigating the local structure and surface chemistry of ceria nanoparticles using 17O solid state NMR spectroscopy and lead by Nanjing University in China and the University of Cambridge and including some of Frédéric’s work has been accepted for publication in Science Advances.
We welcome Ms. Rachel Lalek to the group for her 3rd year research project.
Jan. 2015: Nick and Frédéric visited Bruker in Massachusetts to do some DNP NMR. Unsurprisingly at this time of year, we were welcomed by a record breaking snow storm which brought not less than 61 cm of snow in 24 h and a freezing temperature of - 18 °C.
Frédéric travelled to Lyon this month to give a talk on DNP NMR.
Dec. 2014: Amazing news ! The REF results were announced this month and the Department of Chemistry has done extremely well; it has been ranked 1st for research excellence, 2nd overall and 3rd on impact. Check out more at on the Department website at https://www.liv.ac.uk/chemistry/ref-2014/ or on the Times Higher Education website.
Frédéric attended the BRSG - NMR meeting on 15/12/14 to hear about the latest development in Magnetic Resonance and Muons Spectroscopy as a complementary approach to study materials. He also attended the NMRDG Christmas meeting with a mix of talks from speakers coming from France and Denmark.
Frédéric gave a seminar on DNP enhanced solid-state NMR at the University of Nottingham (UK) which will soon host the 1st commercial Bruker DNP NMR system in the UK. For more info, visit the Nottingham DNP MAS NMR facility website at http://www.solidstatenmr.org.uk/dnp.html.
Nov. 2014: The group enjoyed a trip to Manchester to attend the Bruker UK user meeting and hear about the latest hardware and software development. Frédéric gave a talk on the DNP NMR work of the group.
Oct. 2014: We are pleased to welcome a number of new students this month. John Corley returns to the group after his 3rd year project last year to carry out his MChem research project in the lab.
Nick Brownbill arrives from the University of Hull with a 1st class MChem degree in Chemistry and will work on DNP enhanced NMR.
Kenneth Inglis is coming from the University of Surrey where he received a 1st class MChem degree in Chemistry and will work on solid state NMR of fast ion conductors, and is jointly supervised with Prof. Matthew J. Rosseinsky. Both are funded by EPSRC.
Sept. 2014: Frédéric attended the pNMR conference at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge organized by Prof. Clare P. Grey and her group, and the ITN EU’s network on paramagnetic NMR.
Frédéric also travelled to China this month to set up some new exciting collaborative projects.
Aug. 2014: At the end of this month, we say good bye to summer students Laura Kennerley, Flavia Gontijo da Silva and Daniel Lara Sangiorge who performed 13C NMR on polymeric systems. Laura has one more year on her BSc Physics course while Flavia and Daniel will finish their studentships and follow a range of Chemistry courses offered by the department. We wish them all the best for their new adventures.
July 2014: Exciting day ! Frédéric received funding from EPSRC to continue working on DNP enhanced solid state NMR of inorganic materials.
Frédéric travelled to the US for a few weeks to attend conferences, visits colleagues in Chicago and Boston, and performed DNP experiments.
Mona and Frédéric spent a week in France and travelled to the CEMHTI in Orléans to perform high temperature static solid state NMR experiments at 400 MHz.
June 2014: Frédéric’s paper in Dynamic nuclear polarization solid state NMR of low gamma nuclei was accepted for publication in J. Phys. Chem. Lett. Check it out at http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jz5007669 This work provides a powerful alternative strategy for acquiring solid-state NMR spectra of very insensitive nuclei, such as 89Y, allowing structural characterization of an ever-increasing range of materials.
Scott Sneddon from the group of Prof. Sharon Ashbrook at the University of St. Andrews visited the group this month and spend some times in the lab enriching materials in 17O.
We welcome three summer students to the group this month. 2nd year undergraduate physics student Mrs. Laura Kennerley who won an EPSRC bursary vacancy award, Ms. Flavia Gontijo da Silva and Mr. Daniel Lara Sangiorge, who both are the Brazilian Science Without Border studentship will work in the lab this summer and get some hands on solid state NMR spectroscopy.
A paper on new organic polymers for CO2 gas capture was accepted for publication to J. Am. Chem. Soc. this month. Frédéric illustrated again the usefulness of DNP enhanced solid state NMR to the structural characterization of libraries of polymers.
Frédéric attended the GERM (Groupement d’Etude de Resonance Magnétique) meeting in the south of France and gave an invited talk (in french !) on DNP NMR. It was a good meeting with plenty of chances to set up collaboration with the strong french NMR community.
May 2014: Frédéric went to ETH Zürich this month to visit Prof. Christophe Copéret’s group and gave a talk on his work on DNP NMR.
Mona and Frédéric went to Warwick for a week to perform a series of experiments at high magnetic field.
April 2014: Frédéric gave a talk at the 2nd annual symposium in advances in Li battery research at the University of Liverpool.
Mike shared his work with others during a well received talk in the Department of Chemistry as part of his MChem degree.
The group attended the annual UK 850 MHz solid-state NMR facility symposium at the University of Warwick, and had a chance to discuss some of their works with others.
March 2014: Two new PhD studentships are available in the group. Check out the Jobs page !
Feb. 2014: John and Frédéric conducted EPR experiments at the National EPSRC funded EPR facility at the University of Manchester.
Frédéric travelled back to Warwick this month to perform very fast MAS experiments on the 850 MHz spectrometer.
Jan. 2014: We welcome Mr. Nicholas Creator and Mr. John Corley to the group. Both are going their 3rd year research projects in the lab and will learn solid state NMR and EPR spectroscopies.
Frédéric and Mona carried out experiments at the 850 MHz in Warwick, performing 71Ga NMR experiments at very fast MAS.
Dec 2013: Frédéric travelled to London this month to attend the annual BRSG NMR Discussion Group Christmas meeting on “Signal Enhancement Methods in Magnetic Resonance”.
Few papers from the group appear online this month.
Following a trip to China and collaboration with Nanjing University funded by the Royal Society, a paper with Prof. Luming Peng entitled “Investigating Local Structure in Layered Double Hydroxides with 17O NMR Spectroscopy” was published in Advanced Functional Materials.
A paper with Prof. Matthew J. Rosseinsky where we characterized new peptide based porous materials appeared online in Angewandte Chemie.
Finally, a paper following work that Frédéric did as a postdoc with Prof. Clare P. Grey from the University of Cambridge was accepted for publication in Physical Chemical Chemical Physics. We reinvestigated the structure of Brownmillerite Ba2In2O5 with state of the art NMR techniques and DFT calculations, allowing to shed the light on key structural features.
Oct. 2013: We welcome Ms. Mona Kab Omir and Mr. Michael Jones to the group. Mona is coming from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark and will work on fast ion conductors. Michael Jones is returning from Liverpool after a year in industry working at GSK in Stevenage and will work on fast Li transport during his MChem project.
Sept. 2013: Frédéric’s paper “Dynamic Nuclear Polarization NMR Spectroscopy Allows High Throughput Characterization of Microporous Organic Polymers” in collaboration with Prof. Andy Cooper’s group and people at Bruker was published this month as a communication in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
Sept. 2013: Frédéric travelled to France and attended the 8th edition of the Alpine NMR Conference in Chamonix where he gave a well received talk on DNP of 17O NMR at natural abundance and high throughput NMR. Also this month, Frédéric went to the 850 MHz national facility at the University of Warwick and conducted a series of 17O and 71Ga NMR experiments at high field.
Sept. 2013: A paper from Prof. Andy Cooper’s group entitled “Shedding Light on Structure - Property Relationships for Conjugated Microporous Polymers: The Importance of Rings and Strain” where Frédéric performed 13C CP MAS experiments on new polymers appeared online in Macromolecules.
