In a collaboration between the JF Boily group and the Allan Bertram group of UBC, we show that K+ is the key ion driving ice nucleation on K-feldspar, an important part of atmospheric mineral dust. Read the paper here:

Merve (Ph.D. 2018, Umeå U.), a VR- and NASA-supported postdoc at SETI, won this
award for her designing a project to explore frozen environments on Mars:

Two new papers in collaboration with Stina Jansson  and J-F Boily of UmU now out in Environmental Science and Pollution Research:

Niinipuu M, Latham KG, Boily J-F, Bergknut M, Jansson S. 2020 The impact of hydrothermal carbonization on the surface functionalities of wet waste materials for water treatment applications. Env. Sci. Poll. Res. doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-08591-w

Niinipuu M, Bergknut M, Boily J-F, Rosenbaum E, Jansson S. 2020 Influence of water matrix and hydrochar properties on removal of organic and inorganic contaminants. Env. Sci. Poll. Res.  doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-09164-7

Energetics of paramagnetic oxide clusters: the Fe(III) oxyhydroxy Keggin ion

Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2020, DOI: 10.1039/C9CP05795A. Link

C. A. Ohlin

Abstract: The energetics of the different spin states of the five Baker-Figgis isomers of the iron(III) Keggin ion, [Fe(O₄)(Fe(OH)₂ (OH₂))₁₂]⁷⁺, has been investigated using density functional theory in order to demonstrate how the energy landscape of medium-to-large discrete paramagnetic transition metal oxide clusters with large numbers of antiferromagnetically coupled centres can be resolved. Antiferromagnetic coupling causes the energies to span a surprisingly large range of 30 kcal/mol, as determined by calculating the energies of all 664 unique spin configurations based on determination of the antiferromagnetic coupling constants by density functional theory. A program which simplifies the resolution of the energetics of this type of systems is also provided.

“Carbon Dioxide Binding in Supercooled Water Nanofilms on Nanominerals”

by Merve Yeşilbaş (now at SETI), Xiaowei Song (now at IKEA), and Jean-François Boily

You can find the article here

Emma Westling, Lisa Bryggman and Niklas Viklund from Nolaskolan in Örnsköldsvik brought in soil samples for Cesium-137 analysis. Many thanks to Peder Arvidsson from the University Hospital of Umeå  (Center for medical technique and radiation physics) for providing access to his laboratory and hosting the students.

Hydrocarbon-soluble, hexaanionic fulleride complexes of magnesium
Chem. Sci., 2019, 10, 10755-10764. Link
Samuel R. Lawrence,  C. André Ohlin, David B. Cordes,  Alexandra M. Z. Slawin, Andreas Stasch

Abstract: The reaction of the magnesium(I) complexes [{( ^Arnacnac)Mg}₂], ( ^Arnacnac = HC(MeCNAr)₂ , Ar =Dip (2,6-iPr₂C₆H₃), Dep (2,6-Et₂C₆H₃), Mes (2,4,6-Me₃C₆H₂), Xyl (2,6-Me₂C₆H₃ )) with fullerene C₆₀ afforded a series of hydrocarbon-soluble fulleride complexes [{(^Arnacnac)Mg}_nC₆₀], predominantly with n = 6, 4 and 2. ¹³C{¹H} NMR spectroscopic studies show both similarities (n = 6) and differences (n = 4, 2) to previously characterised examples of fulleride complexes and materials with electropositive metal ions. The molecular structures of[{(^Arnacnac)Mg}_nC₆₀] with n = 6, 4 and 2 can be described as inverse  coordination complexes of n [(^Arnacnac)Mg]⁺ ions with C₆₀^n- anions showing predominantly ionic metal-ligand interactions, and include the first well-defined and soluble complexes of the C₆₀^6- ion. Experimental studies show the flexible ionic nature of the {(^Arnacnac)Mg}⁺····C₆₀^6-  coordination bonds. DFT calculations on the model complex [{(^Menacnac)Mg}₆C₆₀] (^Menacnac = HC(MeCNMe)₂) support the formulation as an ionic complex with a centralC₆₀^6- anion and comparable frontier orbitals toC₆₀^6- with a small HOMO-LUMO gap. The reduction of C₆₀ to its hexaanion gives an indication about the reducing strength of dimagnesium(I) complexes.