[Soft Matter Café] Coordination complexes for energy conversion and catalysis

Coordination complexes are metal-containing compounds showing very interesting redox, photochemical and catalytic properties. In this talk I will present my past research activity on energy conversion (from light to electricity and chemical potential, and from electricity to light), catalysis and surface modification using such compounds. The aim is to present my background in chemical synthesis and in several analytical techniques, to see how it could fit in the ongoing activity at ILL or generate new collaborations.

About the speaker: Martina Sandroni graduated in Chemistry at the University of Torino (Italy), then she moved to Nantes, France for a Ph.D. on copper(I) complexes for solar energy conversion (artificial photosynthesis and dye-sensitized solar cells), that she obtained in 2012. Afterwards, she continued her research on coordination complexes during post-docs in Canada (Sherbrooke) and France (Brest, Grenoble). Part of her activity focused again on energy conversion, with complexes for electroluminescent devices and inorganic nanoparticles (quantum dots) for hydrogen photoproduction in water. On the other hand, she also synthesized iron complexes for bio-mimetic oxygen reduction. In 2018, she spent one year at ESRF in Grenoble as electrochemistry laboratory responsible, and providing support to the users of a surface diffraction beamline. In October 2019, she joined ILL in the Soft Matter Science and Support group as chemistry laboratories manager.