Invitation to the lecture: From photochemical reversibility to photoactive materials

The lecture by RNDr. Tomáš Slanina, Ph.D. (Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the CAS, Prague) will take place on Monday, 18 March 2024 at 12:00 in lecture room P8

Light is often perceived as an intangible, elusive element that cannot transform matter. However, irradiation can induce chemical processes that change structures and create new chemical bonds. Light thus represents one of the most elegant, non-lethal ways to control chemical reactions and change the properties and arrangement of materials.

In our redox photochemistry laboratory at the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the CAS, we are developing molecules that can be activated by visible light. This activation enables a variety of processes, such as selective photochemical switching of molecules between two states with different properties, the formation and dissolution of chemical bonds, or reversible electron transfer.

Due to their unique properties, these molecules are widely used, e.g. as light-controlled drugs, programmable molecular electronic components, affinity tags for biomolecules, photosensitive materials, functionalized polymers, or organic solar panels and batteries.

Tomáš Slanina (born 1988) studied organic chemistry at Masaryk University in Brno. He received his PhD at the German University of Reich and Masaryk University in Brno. He has completed research and postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Kansas, University of Strasbourg, Goethe University Frankfurt am Main and Uppsala University in Sweden. As of 2019, he leads a junior research group at the IOCB, currently comprising 14 members, whose research is supported by two international and three national grants. In 2022, he was awarded the prestigious ERC Starting Grant.
Published
Link https://www.fch.vut.cz/en/faculty/organizational-structure/ims/news/f142507/d256793