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Professor Michael North |
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Professor of Organic Chemistry and
joint director of the URC in Catalysis and Intensified Processing |
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News |
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January
2012 Looking
forward to 2012 Already 2012 promises to be a very
busy year. Professor North has been invited to give lectures at a number of
international/national conferences including: FloHet-2012
Florida Heterocyclic & Synthetic Conference (Florida, 4-7 March) Catalysis
and Synthesis using Cheaper Metals (London, 18 April) 4th EuCheMS
Chemistry Congress (Prague, August 26 – 30) The groups first publication of 2012
has already been published and more papers are already submitted. A
brief review of 2011 2011 was another busy and successful year for the North group: Publications. In 2011,
the North group published 6 papers (and already have a 2012 paper published)
and the North group work again attracted over 360 citations. Graph
of citations per year for the North group (data from web of knowledge
12/1/12)
The group gave lectures at a number of conferences in 2011: ‘CO2Chem’ Innovation
in large-volume CO2 recycling with sustainable energy sources: Science,
politics and business opportunities, Aachen, November 2011 (invited
lecturer). ‘Cyclic
carbonates: new green solvents in organocatalysis’ CO2Chem
meeting on CO2 to fine chemicals, Newcastle, September 2011
(presented by Pedro Villuendes – PDRA). ‘Synthesis
of cyclic carbonates using aluminium salen catalysts’ CO2Chem meeting on CO2
to fine chemicals, Newcastle, September 2011 (presented by Carl Young – PDRA). ‘Synthesis of cyclic carbonates from waste
CO2’ 11th International Conference on Carbon
Dioxide Utilization, Dijon,
June 2011 (also session chairman). ‘Synthesis
of cyclic carbonates from waste CO2’ New strategies in Selective
Catalysis, St. Andrews, June 2011 (invited
lecturer). ‘Synthesis of cyclic carbonates from waste CO2’
British Council conference on Sustainable Chemistry, Avila, March 2011 (main
lecturer). ‘Synthesis of cyclic carbonates from
power station exhaust gas’ TSB Collaboration Nation Conference, Leeds, March 2011 (invited lecturer). and
Professor North gave a research seminar at the new University of Lisbon in October
2011. To support this research, the group secured two new EPSRC
grants in 2011 and Professor North’s spin-out company Dymeryx
secured funding through the CarbonTrust fast-track
scheme to develop the business. Eisuke Ishibashi obtained his PhD degree in 2011 and two new
European Erasmus students joined the group. Finally, at the end of 2011 we said farewell to Dr. Pedro Villuendes a long standing PDRA in the group who has
returned to his native Spain with a prestigious fellowship. Pedro has been
replaced by Dr. James Watson. |
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August
2011 So far this year, Professor North has delivered a lecture
entitled ‘Synthesis of Cyclic Carbonates from Waste CO2’ at: The 11th International Conference on CO2 Chemistry
in Dijon. An Anglo-Spanish British-Council conference on sustainable
chemistry in Avila. A one-day conference on ‘New strategies in selective
catalysis’ in St. Andrews Maria Morcillo (PhD student) presented a poster on ‘Amino Acid
Catalysed Aldol Reactions in Cyclic Carbonate Solvents at the 17th ESOC
Conference in Crete’. Professor North will lecture in Lisbon in October and has
already agreed to give invited lectures at the following conferences: Professor North has accepted invitations to give lectures at
the following upcoming conferences: 13th Florida Heterocyclic and Synthetic Conference
(Florida, March 2012): http://www.arkat-usa.org/conferences-flohet-others/ SCI meeting on Catalysis and synthesis using less expensive
metals (London, April 2012) 4th EUChems chemistry
congress (Prague, August 2012): http://www.euchems-prague2012.cz/ July
2011 Three new students will spend the summer in the North group.
Two of these are Newcastle chemistry undergraduate students and the third is
a visiting PhD student from the University de Castilla-La
Mancha (Spain). The North group research was featured in the Diamond Light
Source Annual Review 2010/11. See: http://www.ncl.ac.uk/chemistry/research/showcase/sustainorg/
for details. A free one day conference in CO2 chemistry is being organised
in Newcastle on the 21st September as part of CO2Chem. For details
and registration see: http://www.ncl.ac.uk/chemistry/about/news/item/co-sub-2-sub-conference-at-newcastle January
2011 A
brief review of 2010 2010 was a very busy and enormously successful year for the
North group in many ways: Publications. In
2010, the North group published 13 papers (the second highest ever) and the North
group work attracted 480 citations (the highest ever).
In addition, members of the group presented lectures or
posters at numerous national and international conferences (see July 2010
news). Editorships.
During 2010, Professor North was invited to be the guest editor for a special
issue of Molecules on catalytic asymmetric synthesis (http://www.mdpi.com/journal/molecules/special_issues/catalic_asym_synthesis/) to be published in
2011 and to be the editor for Science of Synthesis volume 19 update. Grants. In
2010, the North group secured two EPSRC grants as a result of which, the
group currently consists of two postdocs, four PhD
students and four MChem students. Three other PhD
students submitted their PhD theses in 2010. Spinout
company. Dymeryx Ltd., a Newcastle
University spin-out company was formally established in 2010 to commercialize
the North group work on converting waste CO2 into useful
chemicals. What
of the future? With three publications already accepted for publication in
2011 and four others in preparation, the North group output looks set to
increase further. Professor North has already been invited to give a plenary
lecture at a Green Chemistry workshop in Spain in March, and Dymeryx Ltd. is attracting significant interest from
potential investors and collaborators. October
2010 Upcoming event – The NORSC (Northern sustainable chemistry)
launch event will take place on the 28th in York. |
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July
2010 Members of the group have attended various international
conferences over the summer including the 17th International
Symposium on Homogeneous Catalysis in Poznan, Poland; The 12th Belgian Organic
Synthesis Symposium in Namur, Belgium, Challenges in Organic Chemistry and Chemical Biology in
San Francisco, USA and the ACS meeting in Boston, USA. |
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April
2010 The
RSC
North-east regional organic chemistry conference was held in Durham.
Pedro was one of the speakers at the meeting and gave a talk on the use of cyclic carbonates as solvents
in organocatalysis. Other members of the group
presented posters. Marta attended two consecutive meetings in Bristol, the symposium on physical organic chemistry (SymPOC |
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