Date/Time
Date(s) - Wed 9 July
18:00 - 19:00
Location
Royal Society of New Zealand
The Royal Society Te Apārangi and its Wellington Branch are hosting a free public lecture. They hope that you will attend and contribute to the discussion afterward.
Speaker: Professor Patricia Hunt
School of Chemical and Physical Sciences
Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington
Abstract
Ionic liquids (ILs) are new solvents and electrolytes, composed of discrete cations and anions. IL differ from typical salts in that the ions are larger, more diffuse and chemically complex. A key feature of ILs is the ability to tailor the physico-chemical properties by varying the constituent ions. ILs are being explored for an astonishingly wide range of applications, including for use in industry, in energy applications, in technological devices and for health applications. However, advances are being hampered by an inability to predict, or even rationalise, IL properties.
Hydrogen bonding (H-bonding) is present in many ILs and plays a key role in determining the physico-chemical properties. The versatility of ILs is, in-part, due to the diverse range of H-bonding that occurs within ILs. While the general nature of a simple “ordinary” H-bond is well known, a deeper characterisation of even traditional H-bonds is more complex. ILs also exhibit a fundamentally distinct and new type of H-bond, the doubly ionic H-bond, a H-bond between two ions, overshadowed by ionic interactions, but also enhanced by the strong polarization of a charged environment.
Computational (quantum chemical) studies can provide insight into the molecular level interactions within ILs, thus establishing a link between the constituent ions and the resultant physico-chemical properties. In this presentation I will interrogate, through computational methods, the structural, vibrational and electronic characteristics of H-bonds in ILs. I will highlight the non-traditional features of H-bonding exhibited by ILs and explore how to conceptualise H-bonding within ILs.
About Professor Hunt
Professor Patricia Hunt is a recognised globally as an expert on ionic liquids. She received her PhD in Theoretical Chemistry from the University of Auckland (while also completing a BA in politics and philosophy). On the strength of her postdoctoral research at Kings College London and Cambridge University in 1998, she won the UK Royal Society’s University Research Fellowship, which she took up at Imperial College London. Where, in 2018, she was made Professor of Theoretical and Computational Chemistry. Since 2020, she has led a Research Group in the School of Chemical and Physical Sciences at Victoria University of Wellington. Professor Hunt has published 82 research papers, which are among the top 1% of most highly cited publications in the field of chemistry. She has also lead or been involved in securing the equivalent of over $30 million NZD in competitive research funding. Her work has been recognised with multiple awards and accolades, including for her supervision and mentoring of early-career researchers.