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Past Project

MChem/PhD

@jonathan_steed

We are very proud of our M.Chem. students at Durham. The M.Chem. project is a superb introduction to chemical research. Since our group has been based in Durham the very many M.Chem. students joining the group have published high quality papers in the scientific literature. We place a strong emphasis on undertaking and communicating work of a standard that is appropriate for publication to the world scientific community… and a paper or two never hurts a student’s CV!

2016/17 Ruth Dobson:

Ruth worked on a range of supramolecular gels based on thiophene and other aromatic stacking groups. Her work was very productive and has given a lot of scope for follow-up research.

2015/16 Beth Henderson and Caroline Offiler:

Beth has been working on self-assembled hydrogen bonding coordination compounds and obtained a renge of interesting results. Caroline has been working very successfully on metal-linked gelators and her project has been published:

2014/15 Abbi Hooper, Heather Coughbrough and Ian Macloughlin:

Abbi has produced a fascinating range of supramolecular gelators in which a hydrogen bonded linker joins pairs of ureas together to produce a non-covalently bound bis(urea). These novel are interesting materials for the crystlization of the drug mesalamine. Heather has made an interesting series of histidine based ligands capable of both gelling and bindign to anions. Ian has looked at the crystallization of platinum containing model pharmaceuticals in both organogelators and new metal-linked bis(urea) gels that he has discovered. Abbi spent some of summer 2015 in the group and as a result her project is now published. Heather produces some beautiful self-assembled soft materials and showed that fibre formation in them was inhibited by complexation to metals and anions. Her work is about to be published in Supramol. Chem.

  • Gelation by supramolecular dimerization of monoureas“, A. E. Hooper, S. R. Kennedy, C. D. Jones and J. W. Steed, Chem. Commun. 2016, 52, 198-201.
  • “Gelation by Histidine-Derived Ureas”, H. M. Coubrough, C. D. Jones, D. S. Yufit and J. W. Steed, Supramol. Chem. 2017, in press.

2013/14 Katherine Andrew, Sam James and Andrew Bellringer:

Katherine has produced an interesting range of platinum-containing gelators designed to mimic platinum anti-cancer drugs. Crystallization of these inorganic drugs in the designer gels may lead to novel solid forms with improved bioavailability. Sam has produced a fascinating range of self-assembled coordination complexes based on hydrogen bonding pyrazoles and his work is currently being written up for publication. Andrew has examied composite gel phase materials containing vinyl caprolactam derivatives and polymers with a view to modifying the gels’ materials properties. Both Sam’s and Katherine’s projects have since been published:

2012/13 Sarah Armitage and Charlie Duffin:

Sarah is working on the the synthesis and properties of super-strong fluorinated supramolecular gels. Her work is part of a collaboration involving small angle neutron scattering with the University of Missouri – Columbia and is currently being written up. Charlie carried out solvothermal synthesis of self-assembled, anion-templated coordination complexes. Sarah’s project led to some fascinating SANS studies in collaboration with the Universities of Missouri – Columbia and Cincinatti:

2011/12 Miranda Camping and Bethan Massey:

Bethan worked on the synthesis of vinylcaprolactam-cyclodextrin and calixarene conjugates as water hosts and possible clathrate hydrate inhibitors (sponsored by Ashland Speciality Ingredients). Miranda carried out a project on “Gelling graphene” – the synthesis of an organogel and gelling solutions of graphene in collaboration with Prof. Karl Coleman’s group in Durham.

2010/11 Gary Cameron and Alex Erdmanis:

Gary and Alex worked on projects involving tunable supramolecular gels and pharmaceutically relevant organic polymorphism. Gary’s project has since been published

  • “Blending gelators to tune gel properties and probe anion-induced disassembly”, J. A. Foster, R. M. Edkins, G. J. Cameron, N. Colgin, K. Fucke, S. Ridgeway, A. G. Crawford, T. B. Marder, A. Beeby, S. L. Cobb and J. W. Steed, Chem. Eur. J., 2014, 20, 279-291.

2009/10 Kelly Armstrong, John Davenport and Ed Pyzer-Knapp:

Projects are on (i) organic polymorphism and unusual rigid co-gels, (ii) clathrate hydrate prevention by kinetic inhibition (sponsored by Ashland Speciality Ingredients) and (iii) ‘push-pull’ anion receptors for Raman-based anion sensing. John’s project has since been published.

  • “A Simple Chemical Model of Clathrate Hydrate Inhibition by Polyvinylcaprolactam”, J. Davenport, Osama M. Musa, M. J. Paterson, M.-O. M. Piepenbrock, K. Fucke and J. W. Steed, Chem. Commun., 2011, 47, 9891.

2008/09 Ammie Cresswell and Tom Featherstone:

Ammie and Tom carried out projects on Zwitterionic anion hosts and anion templated self-assembly of discrete coordination polyhedra. Ammie’s project resulted in a fascinating self-assembled capsule complex that was published in Chemical Communications.

  • “A water soluble, anion-binding zwitterionic capsule based on electrostatic interactions between self-complementary hemispheres”, A. L. Cresswell, M.-O. M. Piepenbrock and J. W. Steed, Chem. Commun., 2010, 46, 2787.

2007/08 Anna Barnard, Jonathan Foster, Sara French and Christopher Whiteley:

In 2007/2008 Anna, Jonathan, Sara and Chris carried out projects in chiral tripodal anion hosts derived from amino acids, supramolecular gels, hydrogen storage by metal-organic frameworks and crystal engineering of high Z’ structures respectively. Anna’s project is published in Org. Biomol. Chem. and Chris’ is in Crystal Growth & Design. Sara published two papers in Dalton Transactions one in conjunction with Robert Dyer’s work from the previous year. Jonathan has gone on to Ph.D. study in the group and his project on the use of gels to template organic polymers is being prepared for publication.

  • “Enantioselective lactate binding by chiral tripodal anion hosts derived from amino acids”, A. Barnard, S. J. Dickson, M. J. Paterson, A. M. Todd and J. W. Steed, Org. Biomol. Chem., 2009, 7, 1554
  • “Designing Pharmaceutical Co-crystals Using Molecules which Crystallise with Z’ > 1”, K. M. Anderson, M. R. Probert, C. N. Whiteley, A. M. Rowland, A. E. Goeta and J. W. Steed, Cryst. Growth. Des., 2009, 9, 1082.
  • “A Catenated Imidazole-Based Coordination Polymer Exhibiting Significant CO2 Sorption at Low Pressure”, C. E. Willans, S. French, L. J. Barbour, J.-A. Gertenbach, P. C. Junk, G. O. Lloyd and J. W. Steed*, Dalton Trans., 2009, 6480.

2006/07 Robert-John Dyer, Jessica Martin and Emma Wallace:

In 2006/2007 Rob, Jess and Emma carried out projects in hydrogen storage and unconventional hydrogen bonding, unsymmetrical crystal structures and bipyridinium tetrapodal anion hosts respectively. Papers have been published on both Emma and Rob’s work and a large paper on Jess’ project is currently submitted to Crystal Growth & Design.

  • “Intramolecular binding site competition as a means of tuning the response of a colourimetric anion sensor”, S. J. Dickson, E. V. B. Wallace, A. N. Swinburne, M. J. Paterson, G. O. Lloyd, A. Beeby, W. J. Belcher, and J. W. Steed, New J. Chem., 2008, 32, 786.
  • “Tripodal Imidazole Frameworks: Reversible Vapour Sorption Both With and Without Significant Structural Changes”, C. E. Willans, S. French, K. M. Anderson, L. J. Barbour, J.-A. Gertenbach, G. O. Lloyd, R. J. Dyer, P. C. Junk and J. W. Steed, Dalton Trans., 2011, 40, 573.
  • “The dominance of charge-assisted hydrogen bonding on short contacts and structures which crystallise with Z’ > 1”, K. M. Anderson, A. E. Goeta, J. E. Martin, S. A. Mason, G. J. McIntyre, B. C. R. Sansam, C. Wilkinson and J. W. Steed*, Cryst. Growth Des., 2011, 11, 4904.

2005/06 Claire Stanley and Adam Todd:

In 2005/06 Claire Stanley and Adam Todd carried out very interesting synthetic projects on urea capsules and pyridyl urea metallogels, respectively. Two papers have been published and both Claire and Adam have gone on to Ph.D. study.

  • “Anion binding inhibition of the formation of a helical organogel”, C. E. Stanley, N. Clarke, K. M. Anderson, J. A. Elder, J. T. Lenthall, and J. W. Steed, Chem. Commun., 2006, 3199
  • “Helical or polar guest-dependent Z’=1.5 or Z’=2 forms of a sterically hindered bis(urea) clathrate”, A. M. Todd, K. M. Anderson, P. Byrne, A. E. Goeta, and J. W. Steed, Cryst. Growth Des., 2006, 6, 1750

2004/05 Lucas Applegarth and Jenny Russell:

In 2004/05 Lucas Applegarth and Jenny Russell carried out enormously successful 4th year projects on simultaneous hydrogen bonding and coordinating pyridyl ligands. Details of their work are given under example M.Chem. projects. Both students have published two papers each, three in the prestigious journal Chemical Communications and one in CrystEngComm on their M. Chem. work. Indeed one paper was already in print before the project was completed.

  • “Influence of hydrogen bonding on coordination polymer assembly”, L. Applegarth, A. E. Goeta, and J. W. Steed, Chem. Commun., 2005, 2405 (top 10 accessed article May 2005; RSC ‘Country of the Month’ highly cited UK paper for 2005)
  • “Modular nanometer-scale structuring of gel fibres by sequential self-organization”, L. Applegarth, N. Clark, A. C. Richardson, A. D. M. Parker, I. Radosavljevic-Evans, A. E. Goeta, J. A. K. Howard, and J. W. Steed, Chem. Commun., 2005, 5423
  • “Simultaneous anion and cation binding by a simple polymer-bound ureidopyridyl ligand”, J. M. Russell, A. D. M. Parker, I. Radosavljevie-Evans, J. A. K. Howard, and J. W. Steed, Chem. Commun., 2006, 269
  • “Anion-binding mode in a sulfanylphenyl urea complex: solid state symmetry breaking and solution chelation”, J. M. Russell, A. D. M. Parker, I. Radosavljevic-Evans, J. A. K. Howard, and J. W. Steed, CrystEngComm, 2006, 8, 119 (highlighted in Chemical Science)

2003/04 Ben Smith:

Ben’s project generated the following papers:

  • “The R12(6) hydrogen-bonded synthon in neutral urea and metal-bound halide systems”, D. R. Turner, B. Smith, A. E. Goeta, I. R. Evans, D. A. Tocher, J. A. K. Howard, and J. W. Steed, CrystEngComm, 2004, 6, 633
  • “Anion binding by Ag(I) complexes of urea-substituted pyridyl ligands”, D. R. Turner, B. Smith, E. C. Spencer, A. E. Goeta, I. R. Evans, D. A. Tocher, J. A. K. Howard, and J. W. Steed, New J. Chem., 2005, 29, 90