News

Feb 2024

NWO has awarded a VICI grant of 1.5M€ to our group to develop new organic redox-active materials for application in flow batteries. Congrats also to the the other awardees at UG!

Liliana Capulin Flores succesfully defended her PhD thesis in the framework of the double-doctorate programme between UG and UNAM. Congratulations, Dr. Capulin Flores!

Many thanks to co-supervisor Prof. Noé Zúñiga Villarreal for a fruitful collaboration.

Reinder Bouma starts as a PhD student to develop new organic active materials for redox flow batteries. Welcome to the group!

Congrats to Tati Fernandez-Ibanez (UvA) on their publication in Chem. Sci., featuring crystal structures measured by us in Groningen.

Nov 2022

Check out Jelte's latest ChemPhysChem article on bipolar radicals for energy storage in redox-flow batteries. The relatively poor stability of organic battery materials is a major challenge for battery longevity. Here we study how verdazyls decompose, based on which ways to improve stability are proposed.

Aug 2022

New paper out in Inorg. Chem. Liliana describes Re carbonyl complexes with neutral formazan ligands. For those interested in synthesis, spectroscopy and computational studies. A nice collaborative work with my colleague Remco Havenith, Noé Zúñiga-Villarreal (UNAM) and Inke Siewert (University of Göttingen)!

Two papers accepted within two weeks!

Our first paper on symmetrical redox-flow batteries appeared in J. Am. Chem. Soc. Bipolar Blatter radicals provide high cycling stability, and opportunities for recovery using polarity inversion! A nice write-up by René Fransen for Science LinX can be found here.

Interested in switchable catalysts? Check out Folkert's paper on a ZnOPh catalyst with redox-active ligand. Unusual mechanism involving the ligand, unusual polymer topology (cyclic PLA!), and all of that at the flick of a redox-switch. Out now in ACS Catal.

Jelte's work on symmetrical redox flow batteries using Blatter radicals is now available for your viewing pleasure as a preprint on ChemRxiv.

Congrats to Beibei; his article on selective α‐deuteration of cinnamonitriles appears online in Adv. Synth. Catal. 

Proposal funded! We've received an NWO XS grant to develop new methods for studying the performance/decomposition of organic redox flow batteries.

Preslav Smits and Basile Roufosse join the group for their MSc projects. Good luck in the lab, guys!

Welcome to Liliana Capulin-Flores, who joins the group as a PhD student in the double-doctorate program with UNAM.

Wenlong Tang joins the group as a PhD student (funded by a CSC fellowship). He will work on the development of organic redox-flow batteries.

More on Francesca's spin-crossover complexes, this time in Inorg. Chem.: steric properties, stacking interactions and additional weak donor give rise to a very wide range of spin-crossover temperatures.

Folkert publishes his first first-author paper: well done! Read all about the work in Organometallics

Beibei's book chapter for Topic in Organometallic Chemistry on catalytic conversion of nitriles is available online

Nov 2020

Francesca's artile on controlling spin-crossover properties in four-coordinate Fe(II) complexes appears in JACS: very proud of this work, with key contributions from collaborators Jordi Cirera (Barcelona) and Serhiy Demeshko / Franc Meyer (Göttingen).

Nov 2020

Beibei succesfully defends his PhD thesis! Sad to see you go... All the best for the future!

Many thanks to Prof. Hans de Vries for co-supervising this project.

Fall 2020

Now the lockdown of our labs has come to an end, BSc/MSc students can join again (with some restrictions...). Welcome to Imke Bartels, Jules Nuismer, Arjan Hooiveld, Emma Vrins, Davide D'Angelo, Tim Engels and Daniel Buwalda

June 2020

Check it out: Ranajit's research results on the influence of counter cation on the properties of Al and B complexes is published in Dalton Trans.

Feb 2020

The work of former MSc student Johan Bootsma carried out together with Beibei Guo on chiral pyrrolidine-substituted PNN Ru complexes is online in Organometallics!

Jan 2020

Our invited review (with Joe Gilroy) on formazanate complexes has appeared in the first 2020 issue of Chem. Soc. Rev.

Featured on the back cover thanks to Jana Volaric's great artwork.

Oct 2019

Congratulations to Beibei: his work on nitrile hydration is accepted for publication in Chem. Sci.!

Aug 2019

Welcome to ERASMUS+ exchange student Vytautas Eiva from Vilnius University, Lithuania! Vytautas will spend two months in the lab trying to synthesize stable radicals.

July 2019

Ranajit's comparison of the properties of highly reduced formazanate B and Al complexes appears in Dalton Trans.

April 2019

Ranajit's paper on the synthesis and characterization of aluminum complexes with formazanate ligands appears in Inorg. Chem.; congrats!

April 2019

The work of Francesca and BSc student Luuk Koiter on the synthesis of cyclic carbonates from CO2 and epoxides appears in ChemSusChem. Many thanks to Arjen Kamphuis and Prof. Paolo Pescarmone from the Chemical Engineering group in Groningen for a great collaboration.

Sept 2018

In a collaborative project with the Milani group (Trieste), Francesca and Folkert publish their results on the organometallic chemistry formazanate palladium compounds in Dalton Trans.

June 2018

Francesca's paper on the chemistry of ferrate(II) complexes is accepted.

May/June 2018

Folkert de Vries and Jelte Steen join the group as PhD students. Good luck guys!

March 2018

Beibei's work on the synthesis of 1,3-amino alcohol compounds via oxa-Michael addition reactions is accepted for publication in ChemCatChem!

Feb 2018

Our group, together with students from other groups in the Stratingh Institute for Chemistry and from the University of Southern Denmark, participates in a one-week workshop on X-ray crystallography in Groningen, taught by Prof. Vickie McKee [group picture]

Feb 2018

Ranajit publishes an article in Inorganic Chemistry, in the Forum on “Applications of Metal Complexes with Ligand-Centered Radicals”.

Sept 2017

Renske de Vries joins our lab for her MSc research project.

April 2017

Mu-Chieh Chang is awarded the Backer-KNCV prize for the best PhD thesis in the field of organic chemistry. Read the announcement here. Congrats Mu-Chieh!

Feb 2017

Onno Broekman joins the group for his MSc research.

Feb 2017

Raquel's work on the synthesis of azoindazole switches is published in JACS. This work is another collaboration with the Jacquemin group (Université de Nantes, France), where they did a great job on the computational part.

Nov 2016

Ranajit's paper describing boron complexes with mono-, di- and trianionic formazanate ligands is accepted for publication in Chem. Commun: congrats to Ranajit and co-authors Daan and Mu-Chieh.

Oct 2016

Beibei Guo joins the group as a PhD student funded by the Chinese Scholarship Council, welcome!

Sept 2016

Three students have joined the group for MSc research projects: Folkert de Vries, Johan Bootsma and Jelte Steen.

Aug 2016

Linda's paper on metal-ligand cooperative binding of nitriles to a ruthenium pincer complex is accepted in Dalton Trans.

May 2016

Francesca Milocco is back and has started her PhD in our group!

May 2016

Rahul Suresh joins the group for a summer research internship from IISC Bangalore

May 2016

Our collaboration with theoretical chemist Denis Jacquemin and his group on (formazanate)boron difluorides is accepted for publiation in Dalton Trans.

April 2016

Raquel's communication on spin-crossover in a tetrahedral bis(formazanate) iron complex appears in JACS!

April 2016

Hanneke Siebe joins the group for her BSc research

April 2016

Group trip! together with the group of Prof. Wesley Browne, we went to Girona/Barcelona: a symposium with the people from the QBIS-CAT group at the University of Girona, and sightseeing in (rainy) Girona + (sunny) Barcelona. Some pictures may be found here.

Feb 2016

After defending his thesis 'New catalytic reactions for the conversion of alkenes - from cashew nut shell liquid to unsaturated nitriles', Sebastien is now Dr. Perdriau: congrats!

Jan 2016

Mu-Chieh successfully defends his PhD thesis entitled 'Formazanate as redox-active, structurally versatile ligand platform: zinc and boron chemistry'. Congratulations, Dr. Chang! Click here for some pictures.

Jan 2016

Mu-Chieh's paper on reactivity of formazanate boron hydrides appears online in Organometallics.

Dec 2015

Presents are distributed during the group Sinterklaas party. Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet even prepared a poem!

Sept 2015

Ranajit Mondol joins the group as a PhD student, welcome!

July 2015

Mu-Chieh's paper on the reduction chemistry of formazanate boron compounds is accepted in Inorg. Chem.

May 2015

Edwin is awarded a NWO Vidi grant.

May 2015

Congrats to the newlyweds Raquel and Matt!

April 2015

Folkert de Vries and Onno Broekman (BSc research projects) and Linda Eijsink (MSc research project) join the group, welcome!

March 2015

Francesca Milocco joins the group from the University of Trieste (Prof. Barbara Milani) on an exchange visit funded by COST

Jan 2015

The work of Sebastien and Douwe on oxa-Michael addition catalysis via metal-ligand cooperativity is accepted in Angew. Chem. Congrats!

Dec 2014

Our full paper on bis(formazanate)zinc chemistry appears in Inorganic Chemistry

Nov 2014

Johan Bootsma starts his BSc research project in the group

Oct 2014

Raquel's paper is accepted in Dalton Transactions!

Sept 2014

Welcome to Daan Snoeken who joins the group for his internship project from the Avans Hogeschool Breda

June 2014

We join our colleagues from the Feringa, Harutyunyan and Barta groups on the workweek to Strasbourg: visit to Evonik in Marl, symposium at ISIS (including a lecture by Herve This on molecular gastronomy!) and various social activities

May 2014

Our report on the synthesis and redox-chemistry of (formazanate)BF2 compounds is accepted by Chem. Comm.!

May 2014

A highlight on our Angewandte paper appears in ChemistryViews

April 2014

Albert Brouwer joins the group for his BSc research project

Jan 2014

Mu-Chieh's paper is accepted in Angew. Chem., and will be featured on the inside back cover. Keep up the good work!

Oct 2013

Kaspars Ledukrats is going to work in our group as an Erasmus exchange student until Jan 2014

Sept 2013

Douwe Zijlstra joins the group for his MSc research project

June 2013

Aukse Braziunaite (Jacobs University Bremen) will spend the summer here on an Erasmus summer internship

Feb 2013

Marco Wonink joins the group for his MSc research project

Sept 2012

Peter Roewen joins the group for his MSc research project

Aug 2012

Welcome to Raquel Travieso Puente! Raquel joins the group as a PhD student

Feb 2012

Welcome to Mu-Chieh Chang! Mu-Chieh joins the group as a PhD student

Aug 2011

Edwin Otten is awarded a NWO Veni grant