Core Capability for Chemistry Research at the University of Liverpool
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Liverpool
Department Name: Chemistry
Abstract
This grant will underpin the Chemistry Department's core research capability by upgrading capital equipment in four key areas of Chemistry instrumentation, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, mass spectrometry, X-ray structural analysis and atomic level microscopy. These techniques provide the ability to characterise the new chemicals and materials produced in the Department of Chemistry at Liverpool, to determine their atomic structure and to examine their properties, supporting research activity across the entire Chemistry research portfolio. The new facilities will provide access to state of the art instrumentation for Chemistry academics, early career research staff, post-doctoral research workers and research students, enhancing the quality of the research carried out. Replacement of obsolete instrumentation and extending the capability of the instrumentation base will enhance sample throughput and productivity, permit unstable samples to be analysed, reduce the need for external analysis of samples and allow more complex analysis to be performed. Research programmes relying on these techniques include Materials Research, research into Green Catalysis and new Battery Materials, Drug Discovery and Drug Delivery, and the design of Functional Interfaces. Upgrading the instrument base will also ensure the training provided to research students remains compatible with the instrumentation they will meet in industry, supporting the skills needed by employers and the UK Chemical Industry.
Planned Impact
This proposal represents an ambitious project to provide an open distributed network of instrumentation and equipment across six of the N8 Research Partnership universities (Durham, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, and York) that will provide capacity to meet current and future chemistry research requirements. This will be achieved through the delivery of improved analytical facilities for chemical and materials characterisation, building on Chemistry's current capability with a co-ordinated approach to provide more specialist equipment. The funding will be used to refresh and upgrade the instrumentation available at Liverpool, leading to improvements in the capacity and levels of service that the Department of Chemistry can offer. Providing our researchers with ready access to state-of-the art analytical equipment is essential if the UK chemistry community is to continue to produce world-leading research. The research grants underpinning the bid vary from blue-skies academic research to applied and industrially co-funded projects, and the 'Pathways to Impact' that have been identified for these apply equally to this equipment bid.
Liverpool has an excellent record of bringing business interests and academic research together to drive economic and scientific success. The Department has strong funding links with many partners in the commercial sector, including Acal, Adisseo, Astrazeneca, Bayer, BP, Mristol-Myers Squibb, BNFL, GSK, Ineos Fluor, Iota Nanosolutions, Johnson Matthey, Lucite International, Merck, Millennium, Pfizer, SAFC Hitech and Sanofi-Aventis as well as with the charitable sector, including drug discovery charities, the Medicines for Malaria Venture, Wellcome Trust, the MRC and the IVCC. For example, the Centre for Materials Discovery and the recently announced Materials Innovation Factory (a £45M project jointly supported by the Government's Research Partnership Investment Fund, Unilever and the University of Liverpool) build on strong links with Unilever to provide a unique suite of facilities for Materials research, open to Industrial partners. Additional investment to provide state of the art instrumentation and equipment will strengthen these partnerships and facilitate new collaborations. In addition the Department has an extensive set of interactions with SMEs, who will benefit from the proposed equipment investment through joint research programmes, direct hosting of SME researchers and by the provision of enhanced analytical services.
A principal objective of the N8 Research Partnership is to create a culture of collaboration. The increased coordination underpinning this proposal will enable the equipment purchased to have the maximum benefit to individual departments and to the wider research community. The proposed collaboration will enable partner universities to provide cover and back-up services in the event of a major breakdown in service provision at a single university. An asset-sharing programme is being developed to create an integrated database of assets that are available for the use of researchers throughout the N8. Through this system, equipment and instrumentation funded through this application will be leveraged for a greater impact across both the individual department and the N8 organisation than if it was provided to a single institution.
Provision of new equipment and instrumentation will have a direct impact on the quality of training given to research staff. As available equipment and associated technologies develop, there is a continued need for researchers to have access to, and be fully trained in, the latest techniques. This grant will allow us to continue to train chemists, on state of the art equipment, to a standard that enables them to compete on national and international levels and to support UK industry.
Liverpool has an excellent record of bringing business interests and academic research together to drive economic and scientific success. The Department has strong funding links with many partners in the commercial sector, including Acal, Adisseo, Astrazeneca, Bayer, BP, Mristol-Myers Squibb, BNFL, GSK, Ineos Fluor, Iota Nanosolutions, Johnson Matthey, Lucite International, Merck, Millennium, Pfizer, SAFC Hitech and Sanofi-Aventis as well as with the charitable sector, including drug discovery charities, the Medicines for Malaria Venture, Wellcome Trust, the MRC and the IVCC. For example, the Centre for Materials Discovery and the recently announced Materials Innovation Factory (a £45M project jointly supported by the Government's Research Partnership Investment Fund, Unilever and the University of Liverpool) build on strong links with Unilever to provide a unique suite of facilities for Materials research, open to Industrial partners. Additional investment to provide state of the art instrumentation and equipment will strengthen these partnerships and facilitate new collaborations. In addition the Department has an extensive set of interactions with SMEs, who will benefit from the proposed equipment investment through joint research programmes, direct hosting of SME researchers and by the provision of enhanced analytical services.
A principal objective of the N8 Research Partnership is to create a culture of collaboration. The increased coordination underpinning this proposal will enable the equipment purchased to have the maximum benefit to individual departments and to the wider research community. The proposed collaboration will enable partner universities to provide cover and back-up services in the event of a major breakdown in service provision at a single university. An asset-sharing programme is being developed to create an integrated database of assets that are available for the use of researchers throughout the N8. Through this system, equipment and instrumentation funded through this application will be leveraged for a greater impact across both the individual department and the N8 organisation than if it was provided to a single institution.
Provision of new equipment and instrumentation will have a direct impact on the quality of training given to research staff. As available equipment and associated technologies develop, there is a continued need for researchers to have access to, and be fully trained in, the latest techniques. This grant will allow us to continue to train chemists, on state of the art equipment, to a standard that enables them to compete on national and international levels and to support UK industry.
Organisations
Publications
Dawson R
(2014)
'Dry bases': carbon dioxide capture using alkaline dry water
in Energy Environ. Sci.
Auty S
(2015)
'One-pot' sequential deprotection/functionalisation of linear-dendritic hybrid polymers using a xanthate mediated thiol/Michael addition
in Polymer Chemistry
Anisimova T
(2016)
1,3-Dipolar Cycloaddition of Nitrones to Gold(III)-Bound Isocyanides
in Organometallics
Fernandes A
(2018)
17O solid-state NMR spectroscopy of A2B2O7 oxides: quantitative isotopic enrichment and spectral acquisition?
in RSC advances
Charoensutthivarakul S
(2015)
2-Pyridylquinolone antimalarials with improved antimalarial activity and physicochemical properties
in MedChemComm
Ismail HM
(2016)
A Click Chemistry-Based Proteomic Approach Reveals that 1,2,4-Trioxolane and Artemisinin Antimalarials Share a Common Protein Alkylation Profile.
in Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English)
Xiao J
(2016)
A Convenient Procedure for the Oxidative Dehydrogenation of N-Heterocycles Catalyzed by FeCl2/DMSO
in Synlett
Ojo O
(2014)
A convenient, economical and scalable multi-gram synthesis of 1-vinylcyclopropyl 4-methylbenzenesulfonate
in Org. Chem. Front.
Villa-Marcos B
(2013)
A highly active cyclometallated iridium catalyst for the hydrogenation of imines.
in Organic & biomolecular chemistry
Abraham RJ
(2017)
A molecular mechanics and ab initio prediction of the 1 H chemical shifts of pinanes.
in Magnetic resonance in chemistry : MRC
Gülcemal D
(2015)
A New Phenoxide Chelated Ir III N-Heterocyclic Carbene Complex and Its Application in Reductive Amination Reactions
in Organometallics
Maria L
(2016)
A novel samarium(ii) complex bearing a dianionic bis(phenolate) cyclam ligand: synthesis, structure and electron-transfer reactions.
in Dalton transactions (Cambridge, England : 2003)
O'Neill PM
(2015)
A Quinoline Carboxamide Antimalarial Drug Candidate Uniquely Targets Plasmodia at Three Stages of the Parasite Life Cycle.
in Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English)
Abraham RJ
(2016)
A re-investigation of (4)JFF and (5)JFF nuclear spin-spin couplings in substituted benzenes, a novel conformational tool.
in Physical chemistry chemical physics : PCCP
Abraham M
(2017)
A simple and facile NMR method for the determination of hydrogen bonding by amide N-H protons in protein models and other compounds
in New Journal of Chemistry
Slater A
(2018)
A solution-processable dissymmetric porous organic cage
in Molecular Systems Design & Engineering
Abraham RJ
(2017)
A theoretical and NMR lanthanide-induced shift (LIS) investigation of the conformations of lactams.
in Magnetic resonance in chemistry : MRC
Wang X
(2016)
Acceptorless dehydrogenation and aerobic oxidation of alcohols with a reusable binuclear rhodium( ii ) catalyst in water
in Green Chemistry
Wu J
(2013)
Acceptorless dehydrogenation of nitrogen heterocycles with a versatile iridium catalyst.
in Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English)
Gülcemal S
(2016)
Acceptorless Dehydrogenative Oxidation of Secondary Alcohols Catalysed by Cp*Ir(III) -NHC Complexes.
in Chemistry (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany)
Aspinall HC
(2014)
Adding the right (or left) twist to tris-chelate complexes--coordination chemistry of chiral oxazolylphenolates with M3+ ions (M = Al or lanthanide).
in Dalton transactions (Cambridge, England : 2003)
Anisimova T
(2017)
Addition of N-nucleophiles to gold( iii )-bound isocyanides leading to short-lived gold( iii ) acyclic diaminocarbene complexes
in New Journal of Chemistry
Zou Q
(2015)
Alkylation of Amines with Alcohols and Amines by a Single Catalyst under Mild Conditions.
in Chemistry (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany)
Oliveira R
(2013)
An endoperoxide-based hybrid approach to deliver falcipain inhibitors inside malaria parasites.
in ChemMedChem
Colinas IR
(2017)
Anion exchange dynamics in the capture of perchlorate by a cationic Ag-based MOF.
in Dalton transactions (Cambridge, England : 2003)
Fernández-Álvaro E
(2016)
Antimalarial Chemotherapy: Natural Product Inspired Development of Preclinical and Clinical Candidates with Diverse Mechanisms of Action.
in Journal of medicinal chemistry
Warman AJ
(2013)
Antitubercular pharmacodynamics of phenothiazines.
in The Journal of antimicrobial chemotherapy
Timofeeva S
(2015)
Application of palladium complexes bearing acyclic amino(hydrazido)carbene ligands as catalysts for copper-free Sonogashira cross-coupling
in Journal of Catalysis
La Pensée L
(2013)
Artemisinin-polypyrrole conjugates: synthesis, DNA binding studies and preliminary antiproliferative evaluation.
in ChemMedChem
Li J
(2017)
Atmosphere-Controlled Chemoselectivity: Rhodium-Catalyzed Alkylation and Olefination of Alkylnitriles with Alcohols.
in Chemistry (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany)
Lu S
(2016)
Base-free hydrogenation of CO 2 to formic acid in water with an iridium complex bearing a N,N'-diimine ligand
in Green Chemistry
Coletta M
(2016)
Bis-Calix[4]arenes: From Ligand Design to the Directed Assembly of a Metal-Organic Trigonal Antiprism.
in Chemistry (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany)
Wang X
(2016)
BODIPY catalyzed amide synthesis promoted by BHT and air under visible light
in Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry
McConville M
(2015)
Carbamoyl Triazoles, Known Serine Protease Inhibitors, Are a Potent New Class of Antimalarials.
in Journal of medicinal chemistry
Ma W
(2015)
Carbonylative coupling of allylic acetates with aryl boronic acids.
in Chemical communications (Cambridge, England)
Wei Y
(2014)
Catalyst-free transformation of levulinic acid into pyrrolidinones with formic acid
in Green Chem.
Bechi B
(2014)
Catalytic bio-chemo and bio-bio tandem oxidation reactions for amide and carboxylic acid synthesis
in Green Chem.
Kim G
(2015)
Characterization of the dynamics in the protonic conductor CsH2PO4 by ¹7O solid-state NMR spectroscopy and first-principles calculations: correlating phosphate and protonic motion.
in Journal of the American Chemical Society
Kalidindi S
(2014)
Chemical and Structural Stability of Zirconium-based Metal-Organic Frameworks with Large Three-Dimensional Pores by Linker Engineering
in Angewandte Chemie International Edition
Cheng J
(2016)
Chemoselective dehydrogenative esterification of aldehydes and alcohols with a dimeric rhodium(ii) catalyst.
in Chemical science
Darling GR
(2017)
Chiral segregation driven by a dynamical response of the adsorption footprint to the local adsorption environment: bitartrate on Cu(110).
in Physical chemistry chemical physics : PCCP
Baxter E
(2015)
Combined experimental and computational NMR study of crystalline and amorphous zeolitic imidazolate frameworks
in Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics
Enciso-Maldonado L
(2015)
Computational Identification and Experimental Realization of Lithium Vacancy Introduction into the Olivine LiMgPO 4
in Chemistry of Materials
Abraham RJ
(2015)
Conformational analysis, part 43. A theoretical and LIS/NMR investigation of the conformations of substituted benzamides.
in Magnetic resonance in chemistry : MRC
Elliott EC
(2013)
Convenient syntheses of halo-dibenz[b,f]azepines and carbamazepine analogues via N-arylindoles.
in Organic & biomolecular chemistry
Tang W
(2013)
Cooperative catalysis through noncovalent interactions.
in Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English)
Tang W
(2013)
Cooperative catalysis: combining an achiral metal catalyst with a chiral Brønsted acid enables highly enantioselective hydrogenation of imines.
in Chemistry (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany)
Cheng J
(2017)
Correction: Chemoselective dehydrogenative esterification of aldehydes and alcohols with a dimeric rhodium(ii) catalyst.
in Chemical science
Kinzhalov M
(2014)
Coupling of C-amino aza-substituted heterocycles with an isocyanide ligand in palladium(ii) complex
in Russian Chemical Bulletin
Description | This grant upgraded the NMR, mass spectrometry and surface analysis facilities in the department of Chemistry and underpins the characterisation of all the molecular species developed in the Department. These materials have applications across all areas of the Department's research activity, ranging, for example, from the development of new anti-malarial agents and inhibitors for human alpha-methylacyl CoA reacemase (AMACR) for the treatment of prostate cancer, through to new catalysts for the hydrogenation of imines. |
Exploitation Route | New materials developed by the Department will be investigated for commercial potential. |
Sectors | Chemicals Pharmaceuticals and Medical Biotechnology |
Description | The impact of this equipment grant will be on all aspects of the Department's research and impact portfolio over the next 10 years or longer. |
First Year Of Impact | 2013 |
Sector | Chemicals,Pharmaceuticals and Medical Biotechnology |