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
Grigoropoulos A
(2016)
Encapsulation of an organometallic cationic catalyst by direct exchange into an anionic MOF.
in Chemical science
Zhang Q
(2017)
Designed Synthesis of Au/Fe3 O4 @C Janus Nanoparticles for Dual-Modal Imaging and Actively Targeted Chemo-Photothermal Synergistic Therapy of Cancer Cells.
in Chemistry (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany)
Li J
(2017)
Atmosphere-Controlled Chemoselectivity: Rhodium-Catalyzed Alkylation and Olefination of Alkylnitriles with Alcohols.
in Chemistry (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany)
Dick S
(2017)
SERS and SERRS Detection of the DNA Lesion 8-Nitroguanine: A Self-Labeling Modification.
in Chemistry (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany)
Bock S
(2017)
Single-Molecule Conductance Studies of Organometallic Complexes Bearing 3-Thienyl Contacting Groups.
in Chemistry (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany)
Talwar D
(2014)
Versatile iridicycle catalysts for highly efficient and chemoselective transfer hydrogenation of carbonyl compounds in water.
in Chemistry (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany)
Lei Q
(2013)
Fast reductive amination by transfer hydrogenation "on water".
in Chemistry (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany)
Xue D
(2014)
Direct arylation of N-heteroarenes with aryldiazonium salts by photoredox catalysis in water.
in Chemistry (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany)
Evans K
(2015)
Stabilization of a Bimolecular Triplex by 3'-S-Phosphorothiolate Modifications: An NMR and UV Thermal Melting Investigation.
in Chemistry (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany)
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)
Talwar D
(2014)
Primary amines by transfer hydrogenative reductive amination of ketones by using cyclometalated Ir(III) catalysts.
in Chemistry (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany)
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)
Chen HY
(2015)
Iridicycle-Catalysed Imine Reduction: An Experimental and Computational Study of the Mechanism.
in Chemistry (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany)
Gülcemal S
(2016)
Acceptorless Dehydrogenative Oxidation of Secondary Alcohols Catalysed by Cp*Ir(III) -NHC Complexes.
in Chemistry (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany)
Liu Y
(2017)
Reactions Catalysed by a Binuclear Copper Complex: Aerobic Cross Dehydrogenative Coupling of N-Aryl Tetrahydroisoquinolines.
in Chemistry (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany)
Liu Y
(2017)
Reactions Catalysed by a Binuclear Copper Complex: Relay Aerobic Oxidation of N-Aryl Tetrahydroisoquinolines to Dihydroisoquinolones with a Vitamin B1 Analogue.
in Chemistry (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany)
Zou Q
(2015)
Alkylation of Amines with Alcohols and Amines by a Single Catalyst under Mild Conditions.
in Chemistry (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany)
Martí-Gastaldo C
(2015)
Sponge-Like Behaviour in Isoreticular Cu(Gly-His-X) Peptide-Based Porous Materials.
in Chemistry (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany)
Wallace M
(2014)
Magnetically aligned supramolecular hydrogels.
in Chemistry (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany)
Talwar D
(2015)
Frontispiece: A Simple Iridicycle Catalyst for Efficient Transfer Hydrogenation of N-Heterocycles in Water
in Chemistry - A European Journal
Inglis K
(2016)
Structure and Sodium Ion Dynamics in Sodium Strontium Silicate Investigated by Multinuclear Solid-State NMR
in Chemistry of Materials
Santibáñez-Mendieta A
(2016)
La 3 Li 3 W 2 O 12 : Ionic Diffusion in a Perovskite with Lithium on both A- and B-Sites
in Chemistry of Materials
Enciso-Maldonado L
(2015)
Computational Identification and Experimental Realization of Lithium Vacancy Introduction into the Olivine LiMgPO 4
in Chemistry of Materials
Kewley A
(2015)
Porous Organic Cages for Gas Chromatography Separations
in Chemistry of Materials
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 |