Graduate Studies

School of Chemistry

Research activity within the School of Chemistry involves over sixty postgraduate students and postdoctoral researchers in four main research clusters:

• Materials and Molecules with Biomedical Applications This cluster involves the development of new biomaterials for innovative drug delivery systems and of new anti-cancer and anti-cholesterol drugs.
• Environmental Chemistry Research in this cluster in concerned with developing the fuels and green chemistry of the future. Research in this cluster includes the Combustion Research Centre, the Biomolecular Electronics Research Laboratory and Green Chemistry.
• Bioanalytical Chemistry This cluster is developing new analytical methods for applications in bio-pharma production.
• Chemical Synthesis, Structure and Reaction Mechanism The groups in these areas synthesise new molecules, determine their structure and unravel reaction mechanisms.

For further information on research in the School of Chemistry click here

Recent PhDs

Dr. Grainne Black
Thesis Title:  The combustion chemistry of oxygenates: A computational, modelling and experimental study.
Summary:  This thesis is concerned with the combustion chemistry of a series of oxygenated compounds, which are of interest to the field due to their use as either biofuels or fuel tracers. Three approaches to this subject have been taken, consisting of computational, modelling and experimental work.

Dr. Chiara McDonagh
Thesis Title: Electrostatic Immobilisation of Transition Metal Complexes on Silica Supports
Summary: Chiara's thesis was titled 'Electrostatic Immobilisation of Transition Metal Complexes on Silica Supports' and deals with reactions key to organic chemistry and the pharmaceutical industry. Working with catalysts that control the progress of these reactions Chiara developed a new method to bond the catalysts to a glass like support. This new technique allows the catalysts which are expensive and difficult to produce to be reused many times rather than being lost after one use.

Dr. Marie-Louise O'Connell
Thesis Title: Raman Spectroscopy and Chemometrics: The Quantitative Study of a Model System for Illicit Narcotic Detection
Summary: The analysis of illicit narcotics is complicated by the potential enormity and variation of materials used in their manufacture. To address this, Raman spectroscopy was used in conjunction with chemometrics and advanced machine learning algorithms to accurately identify the presence of a target analyte in a wide variety of complex mixtures.

• Disclaimer
• Privacy
• Copyright
• Accessibility