Research on Chemistry

Center for Integrative Materials Discovery (IMD)


Catalyst Design Theory, Lignin Conversion, CO2 Reduction, Drug Design The IMD Center is directed by Dr. Dequan Xiao.  The center is interested in developing new theoretical and computational chemistry approaches and integrating them with experiments to discover novel chemical materials such as catalysts, molecular drugs, and polymers. The IMD Center recently has won about $700K in total for research projects, including the supports from NSF, NIH, CT Bio-innovative Program, and industrial partners.

Publication
Projects include:

·   Inverse molecular design of green catalysts for converting biomass to liquid fuels

·   Devo design of therapeutic molecules for leukemia cancer

·   Integrative design of polymer elastomers

Analytical Core for the Environment (ACE)


ACE, led by Dr. Chong Qiu, focuses on new analytical chemistry instruments and approaches to address environmental issues, especially air pollution caused by aerosol/particulate matters. Some projects are supported by the NSF, are highly interdisciplinary and provide students hands-on experience in building and utilizing state-of-the-art instruments.

Publication
Projects include:
  • Soot aging and changes in its optical properties
  • The fate of amines in the atmosphere
  • Field measurements on ozone using portable devices
  • Numeric simulation of aerosol composition and property changes

Laboratory of Natural Product Synthesis and Medicinal Chemistry


This lab is directed by Dr. Pier Cirillo. He is interested in the synthesis of marine natural products and their analogs. The ultimate aim is to discover new drugs, especially antibiotics against pathogens such as MRSA, or anti-biofilm agents. The compounds are tested in collaboration with microbiologists at UNH or in industry.

Publication
Projects include:
  • Synthesis of cadiolides and analogs
  • Synthesis of depsidones
  • Synthesis of polyhalogenated aromatics

Polymer Research Laboratory (PRL)


The Polymer Research Laboratory (PRL) is directed by Dr. Hao Sun. The lab is interested in developing creative, macromolecular approaches to solving the problems in the interface of chemistry, materials, and medicine. Several areas of synthetic polymer chemistry are being investigated, with particular focus on those most closely related to biomedical applications and plastic upcycling.

Publication
Projects include:
  • Chemical upcycling of polymer materials
  • Polymer-based delivery systems of therapeutics
  • Sequence-defined polymers

Fourier transform microwave spectroscopy (FTMW) lab


The Fourier transform microwave spectroscopy (FTMW) lab is directed by Dr. Nathan Seifert. We are interested in designing custom instrumentation exploiting microwave radiation to perform high resolution and sensitive spectroscopy on gas-phase molecules and molecular systems. Applications include fundamental structural chemistry, as well as analytical techniques. In addition, we study computational methods for understanding intermolecular interactions, as well as the application of machine learning for spectroscopic analysis.

Publication
Projects include:
  • Spectroscopic instrument design for physical and analytical techniques
  • Exploring intermolecular interactions with quantum chemistry
  • Spectroscopic data analysis and high-precision molecular structure determination