Coordination chemistry, photosensitization and electrochemistry

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The research has as a long-term practical objective to develop, test and implement metal-ligand coordination complexes in catalytic roles in fuel cells, photovoltaic cells, energy storage and information storage. This builds upon expertise acquired with ruthenium- and titanium-containing coordination complexes and in the synthesis of specialized ligands, and seeks to make more fundamental advances in synthetic methodology and structural analysis, to gain a deeper understanding of the catalytic mechanisms, and to study the relationships between structural, electronic and photophysical properties. In the short-term, the five-year plan includes efforts to (i) build more efficient carbon dioxide (CO2) reduction catalysts, and determine the mechanism of action, (ii) investigate a hitherto-unexplored family of photovoltaic sensitizers and implement reductive quenching for some, (iii) anchor the photo- and electro-catalytic centres to electrodes through electropolymerization, (iv) test a new information storage scheme employing spectroscopic and electrochemical responses to read, write and erase data, (v) develop materials that can self-assemble into linear, photo- and electro-active arrays of controlled length, and (vi) investigate the coordination chemistry and electrochemistry of novel titanium complexes as potential electrocatalysts of methanol oxidation for Direct Methanol Fuel Cells.