Intelligent Advanced Materials, Department of Chemistry, Aarhus University
Hybrid perovskites have become popular for solar light harvesting as well as as light emissive systems for solid state lighting. Frequently they are based on lead – but it is possible to get stable, highly efficient materials with the non-toxic, earth abundant manganese! Read more in our latest publication:
Looking for environmentally benign ways of cooling? Then use magnetic refrigeration!
Read about the newest developments in the field and our collaborative work with colleagues from the Ames Lab (Yaroslav Mudryk and magnetic refrigeration pioneer Vitalij Pecharsky) & U Genova (Alessia Provino and Pietro Manfrinetti):
Thank you to the Independent Research Fund Denmark for sponsoring our research activities in the field:
Solubility limits, magnetic and magnetocaloric properties of MoB-type GdCoxNi1−x (0.47 ≤ x ≤ 0.72)
Can natural products be a basis for green lighting technology? 8-Hydroxyquinoline is a natural product found in the fungus Cortinarius subtortus and the plant Allium stipitatum (aka the Persian shallot). 8-Hydroxyquinoline and its derivatives can act as antiseptics and disinfectants, have anti-inflammatory properties, and are heavily researched as antineurodegeneratives, antidiabetics, and anticancer agents in medicine. Its structure renders 8-hydroxyquinoline a good emitter material from the natural pool for light emission. Unfortunately, rapid proton transfer quenches the emission. This can be overcome by complexation with metal ion, such as in tris(8-hydroxyquinolinato) aluminium, which is a compound widely used in OLEDs. However, metal ions such as aluminium are suspected to cause diseases like Alzheimer’s. Thus, metal-free alternatives are more desirable. In a collaboration of chemists, physicists, and chemical engineers we now have developed 8-hydroxyquinoline into a metal-free, natural product platform molecule for true green lighting.
Read the full article here: The 8-Hydroxyquinolinium Cation as a Lead Structure for Efficient Color-Tunable Ionic Small Molecule Emitting Materials
Integrating Green Chemistry into chemistry education is more important than ever. It is really critical that we implement aspects of Green Chemistry and Education in chemistry curricula at all levels.
Prof. Mudring had the honor of hosting Jamie Ferguson as a guest professor in the Intelligent Advanced Materials group at Aarhus University for her sabbatical, where she also gave the Sigma Aldrich Green Chemistry lecture on implementing green chemistry in higher education. This is just one example of how collaborations in Green Chemistry around the globe are growing stronger. Fighting global challenges needs global efforts – and a highly knowledgeable, educated workforce.
Integrating Green Chemistry into Chemistry Education
The Rogers-Mudring collaboration is going strong. Just published are new results from the collaboration that establish solid design guidelines for ionic liquids. This work was also part of Dr. Olivier Renier’s PhD thesis.
You can read the article here.
The Mudring group and collaborators have described a new class of open framework materials (OFMs). OFMs, such as zeolites, contain voids in their structures that give them attractive functionalities including catalysis, gas storage, separation and ion exchange. The framework structures of practically all known inorganic OFMs are restricted to tetrahedral building blocks, such as silicate (SiO44-). In their paper, however, the authors describe their discovery of a whole new class of OFMs with exclusively octahedral building blocks forming the open framework. The octahedral building blocks of these new compounds are reminiscent of the zero-dimensional units that form polyoxometalates (POMs), which are known for their interesting magnetic properties. Repeating those units in three dimensions in an open framework make the authors’ new OFMs interesting for new applications in magnetics, like spintronics for the green transition.
The authors’ approach to synthesising these new materials is key. The use of ionic liquids – that act as the reaction medium, mineralizer, and templating agent – allows for the formation of the open framework instead of dense phases that form by using traditional solvents.
Read the article here.
Danmarks Frie Forsknings Fond (Independent Research Fund Denmark) has just funded AVM’s Green Transition project Enabling energy-efficient refrigeration through new magnetocaloric materials
About the project: Household and commercial refrigeration is responsible for 17% of global electrical energy consumption. It is estimated that by 2030, 13% of global greenhouse gas emissions will be due to refrigeration, unless a revolutionary technology comes along. With respect to conventional cooling, magnetic cooling is a transformational technology where 75% efficiency can be reached. Magnetic cooling does not rely on environmentally hazardous refrigerants such as fluorocarbons or chlorofluorocarbons, which are known to contribute to global warming. Despite the great energy saving potential of magnetic cooling, the technology is not widely used, as there is a lack of materials that demonstrate the magnetocaloric effect. We aim to close this gap through a systematic exploration of the most promising systems that demonstrate efficacy.
The Mudring group’s work with Ukrainian collaborators made it to the cover of the Journal of Solid State Chemistry!
Crystal structures with symmetry are the art of nature – the electronic structure has its beauty, too. Read more about our results from a long-standing collaboration with colleagues from the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, Ukraine:
Crystal and electronic structures of a new hexagonal silicide Sc38Co144Si97
A new publication from the group Phonon-Mediated Nonradiative Relaxation in Ln3+-Doped Luminescent Nanocrystals tackles the unsatisfactory photoluminescence efficiency of Ln3+-doped nanocrystals that severely restricts their practical application. The publication shows that phonon-mediated nonradiative relaxation in Ln3+-doped nanocrystals is substantially influenced by a variety of factors. Moreover, without explicit knowledge and consideration of these factors, property analysis will probably end up with misinterpretation. Thus the use of knowledge established for bulk materials to interpret the experimental findings collected at the nanoscale should be cautiously scrutinized. The authors conclude that systematic studies are needed for the informed development of Ln3+-doped luminescent nanomaterials that can meet the application needs for a sustainable society.