Congratulations Merve Yesilbas for receiving the prestigious NASA Postdoctoral Program (NPP) Fellowship. Merve will use this fellowship, alongside a postdoctoral grant from the Swedish Research Council, to join the NASA Astrobiology Program
Category: News
News from the Lab
Clays, New Perspectives, Challenges & Opportunities workshop at MIT
Michae Holmboe gave an invited talk on the characterization of clay microstructure and molecular dynamics simulations – at the workshop “Clays, New Perspectives, Challenges & Opportunities”, May 2-3 2019, hosted by Prof Andrew Whittle and his postdoc Ali Seiphoori at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Read more here: clays.mit.edu
The lab welcomes Tan Luong
Tan is beginning his Ph.D. studies with Jean-François Boily. He will be working on (photo)catalytic reactions at Mn-bearing mineral surfaces.
PDF/XRD/EXAFS/NMR/FTIR paper on phosphate binding on aluminum hydroxide
A multi-institution collaboration involving University of Wyoming, Argonne National Laboratory, Canadian Light Source, Stony Brook University and Huazhong Agricultural University.
“Phosphate Sorption Speciation and Precipitation Mechanisms on
Amorphous Aluminum Hydroxide” will soon be coming out in the Open Access Journal Soil Systems
Authors: Xiaoming Wang, Brian L. Phillips, Jean-François Boily, Yongfeng Hu, Zhen Hu, Peng Yang, Xionghan Feng, Wenqian Xu, Mengqiang Zhu *
Water vapour condensation paper out now in ES&T
A paper (link here) by Wei Cheng & Khalil Hanna (École Nationale Supérieure de Chimie, Rennes, France) and J.-F. Boily. We show that low loadings of organic matter on minerals make surfaces more hydrophobic while high loading make surfaces more
hydrophilic. This work is one of the several to be published from Wei’s 6-month visit in Umeå in March-September 2018.
Paper on protonation in Anderson-type POMs published in Inorganic Chemistry
“Direct Single- and Double-Side Triol-Functionalization of the Mixed Type Anderson Polyoxotungstate [Cr(OH)3W6O21]6–”
in Inorganic Chemistry, 2019, 58(1), 106-113. Link
Nadiia I. Gumerova, Tania Caldera Fraile, Alexander Roller, Gerald Giester, Magda Pascual-Borràs, C. André Ohlin, and Annette Rompel
Abstract: Since the first successful triol-functionalization of the Anderson polyoxometalates, the protons of the central octahedron X(OH)6 (X—heteroatom) have been considered as a prerequisite for their functionalization and therefore the functionalization of Anderson structures from the unprotonated sides have never been reported. Herein, for the first time, we organically functionalized the mixed-type Anderson polyoxometalate with real-time observation of hybrid anion formation.
Collaborative paper on cellular respiration with SLU researchers now in Physiologia Plantarum
A recent collaborative venture by the Boily group in the study of pine root respiration with the Näsholm group at SLU. The paper “Improved in vivo measurement of alternative oxidase respiration in Field‐Collected pine roots” is now available in Physiologia Plantarum
Swedish Research Council Postdoc Funds Granted to Merve Yesilbas
Congratulations Merve Yesilbas for a 3 MSEK Postdoctoral Research Grant from the Swedish Research Council! Merve will be using these funds to pursue her research career with Dr. Janice Bishop of the SETI institute in San Francisco to work on the mineralogy of planet Mars.
Kempe Foundation Funds IRMS Laboratory
The Boily group thanks the Kempe foundation for a 2-year extension to our Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometry work, with group member Dmitry Shevela, on carbon isotopic signatures in minerals.
Clay-Bound CO2 Residence Lifetimes Paper Accepted in RSC Environmental Science: Nano!
By M. Yesilbas, M. 
The fifth paper of Merve Yesilbas‘ 2018 Ph.D. thesis online here: http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/C8EN01156G
