University of Otago, Department of Chemistry

Chemistry Prize Winners 2023

Gordon Group News

Dr Sara Miller is saying goodbye to Otago to take up the role of Lecturer in Analytical Chemistry at Flinders University, Australia. She also recently received a University of Otago Early Career Awards for Distinction in Research.

We all wish Sara the best in her new position.

Publications

The group recently published a number of papers studying a range of materials including

• brain fatty acids (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodchem.2023.138056),
• kiwifruit quality (https://doi.org/10.1002/jrs.6623),
• the effects of vitamin D on teeth (https://doi.org/10.1002/jbmr.4928),
• drug precipitation in lipid formulation (https://doi.org/10.3390/pharmaceutics15071968),
• the structure of hydroxyapatites (https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.cgd.3c00377) and
• excited state properties of hexa-peri-hexabenzocoronene-substituted dipyridophenazine ligand and its metal complexes (https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.inorgchem.3c01007).

Funding news

Keith Gordon and James Crowley won a Marsden grant to extend their work on creating long-lived excited states focusing on photocatalysis. Their project entitled “Hydrogen generation with sustainable resources – a combined molecular, computational and engineering approach” is in collaboration with researchers in Germany (including past PhD student Dr Georgina Shillito) and in the UK. Keith, in collaboration with Stefan Coen (Auckland, physics), Sara Miller (Flinders) and past PhD student Jono Barnesly (3Waters, Dunedin City Council) secured new idea funding from Te Whao Ai the Dodd Walls Centre to examine water quality using optical techniques. Keith also received new idea funding from the MacDiarmid Institute to examine spatially offset low frequency Raman spectroscopy to analyse materials underneath opaque surfaces.

Conference contributions

Professor Keith Gordon gave a number of invited and keynote talks including:  

• Invited speaker at SciX 2023 conference October 8-13, Sparks, Nevada where he talked about the development of spectroscopy of dipyridophenazine complexes over three decades.
• Invited speaker at the 9th International Discussion Meeting on Relaxations in Complex Systems (9 IDMRCS) Makuhari Messe, Chiba, Japan in August 2023 where he discussed how low frequency Raman spectroscopy can be used to understand molecular mobility below the conventional glass transition temperature.
• Keynote speaker at The 8th Asian Spectroscopy Conference (ASC2023 Tokamachi, Niigata, Japan, September 3-6, 2023, where he presented work on long-lived excited states using triplet intraligand charge-transfer excited states.
• Invited speaker at The 12th International Conference on Advanced Vibrational Spectroscopy (ICAVS12)  Krakow, Poland, 27 August - 1 September 2023 where he presented work on low frequency Raman spectroscopy as an analytical method to examine order in pharmaceutical materials.
• Invited speaker at the International Conference on Science and Technology of Pharmaceutical Glasses, National Institute for Materials Science, Sengen site (Tsukuba, Japan) on 10 August 2023 where he presented a review of low frequency Raman spectroscopy across a range of applications.
  

Dr Sara Miller was a speaker at the 2023 Australia and New Zealand Conference on Optics and Photonics (ANZCOP) and Australian Institute of Physics (AIP) Summer Meeting, presenting on “Looking below the surface with spatially offset low frequency Raman spectroscopy” at the Research School of Physics, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia Dec 3-8, 2023. 

Sam Harris gave a talk at the recent Asian Photochemistry Conference in Melbourne where he presented on donor-acceptor compounds.  

Amir Sohail presented a poster at the Australasian Community for Advanced Organic Semiconductors (AUCAOS) meeting on donor-acceptor systems and methods to model their charge-transfer transitions and excited states. Keith also talked at this meeting.  

Mitchell Chalmers presented his work at the 12^th International Conference on Vibrational Spectroscopy in Krakow Poland, 27 August - 1 September, focusing on discriminating microcalcifications immersed under varying depths of wax.

Jervee Punzalan participated in the 7^th International Conference on Food Structures, Digestion, and Health in Queenstown, 14-17 November 2023. She presented her poster on the use of “Pulsed electric field and non-destructive characterization analysis with microNIR spectroscopy”. With reference to the poster, she also showcased a 90-second video and received recognition as one of the finalists.

Welcome and welcome back

Peter Remoto returns to the group as a PhD student after successfully completing a 6-month internship with DEC Healthcare’s R&D team from 1 May to 1 November. This internship was organised by Dodd-Walls and funded by Callaghan Innovation. Peter’s role was to explore near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) to reliably monitor formulation accuracy during the hot melt extrusion process.

In October 2023, Elkhansa ElBasheir (Hansa) became a member of the group as a PhD student. Her research involves the analysis of a range of artificial pigments using spectroscopy and computational methods. Additionally, she is exploring the impact of crosslinking on enhancing the thermal and photo stability of a donor polymer through the use of Raman spectroscopy and density functional theory (DFT) techniques.

Congratulations to Anam Zulfiqar who will join the group next year having received funding from Te Whao Ai the Dodd Walls Centre for a PhD scholarship (co-supervised by Cushla McGoverin - Auckland physics) looking at medical samples using spectroscopic methods. ‍

Summer Students

We have also welcomed three summer students for 2023/2024. Daniel McKenzie is working on composition of insects as a source of protein, Joseph Wilkinson is working with James Crowley on the synthesis of new increased conjugation polypyridyl ligands and Henry Barry is working on the synthesis of donor-polypyridyl ligands and their complexes.

MBIE project - Cybermarine

In late November, Jeremy Rooney visited Plant and Food Nelson for technical meetings with engineers from Trinder Engineering on developing an interface for in-line NIR and Raman measurements of marine homogenate and other feedstocks. This is part of the MBIE program Cybermarine. He returns in late January for measurements.

Visiting scholar

Associate Professor Haiyan Zhao from the College of Food Science and Engineering, Qingdao Agricultural University, is visiting to work on the spectroscopy of chia seeds in collaboration with Professor Indra Oei (Food Science, Otago).