Our former colleague and lanthanide photocatalysis guru Dr. Monika Tomar (PhD 2024, now postdoc in Professor Crispin Lichtenberg’s group) has received a Humboldt fellowship.

We are incredibly proud of her! Congratulations, Monika!

Rohan has taught our Sm-based photocatalysts to reduce nitrogen, nitrites and nitrates to ammonia, and our wonderful collaborators helped us figure out the mechanism. You can read the paper with all the exciting details in Chem.

Rohan’s paper is finally out in Chem, and we are very excited about it! Read about the lanthanide photocatalyst that reduces CO₂, carbamate, and (bi)carbonates to CO or formate, CO to methane or methanol, and does it with amazing efficiency and selectivity.

A paper on F/CF₃-substituted carbostyrils as sensitizing antennae for luminescent lanthanide ions has just been published in Eur. J. Inorg. Chem. Congratulations to Dani and Harhsa!

We are looking for a highly motivated PhD student to join the group and work on lanthanide photocatalysis. For further details please visit the university website:

https://www.uu.se/om-uu/jobba-hos-oss/lediga-jobb/jobbannons?query=787334

The deadline of the application is 4 February.

A position funded by the Carl Tryggers Foundation is available in the group. To apply please send your CV, list of publications, a summary of your research experience, and contact information for three references to eszter.borbas@kemi.uu.se.

The project concerns the development of catalytic reactions using photochemically generated divalent lanthanide species. Please see the group’s recent publications (JACS 2023, Org. Lett 2024) and this preprint for more information on the type of research we do. Strong organic/inorganic synthesis skills, or experience with lanthanide chemistry and spectroscopy is necessary.

Application deadline: January 7, 2025.

Her paper on Ln(II) formation with a variety of visible-absorbing chromophores has been accepted in Inorg. Chem.

A simple photocatalyst for Sm(II)-mediated reductions that absorbs visible light, works in aqueous solutions with 2% catalyst loading, and needs only 1 equiv. of ascorbate as a sacrificial reductant: read all about it in our new paper. Well done, Monika, Caroline, Jules and Rohan, and a big thank you to our collaborators Anders and Andreas!

Our manuscript on divalent lanthanide catalysis has just been accepted. Check out the Publications page for more.

Congratulations to Monika, Rohan, Daniel, and our wonderful collaborator Anders Thapper!

Read about the group’s investigations on the fluoride and cyanide binding properties of luminescent lanthanide complexes in this recent paper. Salauat even designed a cool cover for the issue!