Research

Scalable Sustainable Materials

Technologically relevant semiconductors have traditionally been elemental or binary compounds, such as, silicon or gallium arsenide. The employment of ternary – i.e., three elements comprising – materials opens up an immense diversity of structural, electronic, magnetic, and dielectric properties, to name just a few.

Our research group investigates such ternary and multinary materials based on abundant, non-critical, low-toxicity elemental combinations. The experimental approach of molten salt syntheses facilitate gram-scale yields, thereby allowing in-depths investigations of physical properties and chemical reactivities.

Besides the structural aspects of novel compounds, we’re focussing on the dielectric responses of novel and literature-known materials for next-generation capacitor materials, aiming at giant permittivity or dielectric loss values for diverse applications.

• Low-Cost, Multifunctional, and Sustainable Sodium Sulfido Ferrate(II)

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• Insights into a Defective Potassium Sulfido Cobaltate: Giant Magnetic Exchange Bias, Ionic Conductivity, and Electrical Permittivity

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• Structural, Electronic, and Magnetic Curiosities of an Unprecedented Chromate (II)

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Metalate formation in Ionic Liquids

Ionic liquids are salts with melting points below 100°C, therefore facilitating reactivities of molten-salt approaches near room temperature. Our group investigates the formation of unprecedented ionic coordination compounds from such reaction media comprising auxiliary organic cations to facilitate crystallization of novel compounds for further analysis.

One of our current focus areas comprises ionic coordination compounds of lithium, so-called “lithates”, including structural assemblies that are typically observed only in transition metal chemistry. According to the vast potential of ionic liquids in electrochemical applications, including lithium-ion batteries, our investigations target a fundamental understanding of species and processes related to ionic liquids as electrolyte.

• Ino-Chloridolithates from Ionothermal Synthesis

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Electrides and Electrolysis in Liquid Ammonia

Ammonia is considered one of the key compounds in future hydrogen economy. It is also known for stabilizing “naked electrons” in solution – so-called electride solutions. These highly reactive species can facilitate the reduction of many elements and compounds.

Our investigations employs electride solutions from alkali metals and electrolysis towards novel synthons, i.e., highly reduced species for further reactions. Whilst a fundamental understanding of reactivities and obtainable compounds is our main focus, we also target large-scale syntheses of group 15 and 16 anions for further synthetic explorations towards hybrid metalates.

• The Hydronaphthalide Monoanion: Isolation of the “red transient” Birch Intermediate from liquid Ammonia

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Immersive Technology to Enhance Understanding

Whilst traditional teaching methodology, such as, blackboard or powerpoint lectures, as well as practical courses, have developed over time and remain the predominant approaches to impart knowledge, some aspects of university’s curricula can benefit from novel technologies. Especially topics which require an advanced spatial comprehension of the concepts can benefit from an alternative teaching approach.

We have implemented an Augmented Reality (AR) database that allows digital representations of an extensive list of 3D chemical structure models that can accessed easily with a common smartphone through scanning a provided QR code. Evaluation of the methodology implies enhanced understanding alongside improved motivation from students.

Our current project implements a Virtual Reality (VR) environment to interact with 3D chemical models in a fully-immersive setting. The embedding within a teaching course does require more preparation compared to conventional lectures, but greatly improves students’ understanding of geometric arrangements within complex structures in chemistry.

• VeRidium: A Fully Immersive and Interactive Virtual Reality Educational Environment

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• Structural Chemistry 2.0: Combining Augmented Reality and 3D Online Models

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