In the first half of my talk I will report a series of bis-paraphenylendiamines monoradical cations as well as diradical dications. The nature π-dimeric interactions of them are highly dependent on the structure of the covalently bonded bridge. Doubly trimethylene bridged diradical dications are diamagnetic due to spin pairing and exists in three most stable π-dimeric conformations, which can be observed by NMR at low temperatures and in specific solvent systems. Structural similarities of the π-dimeric diradical dications and mixed-valence monoradical cations gives unique opportunity to discuss the nature of π-dimeric long bonds in terms of the well accepted electron-transfer and mixed-valence theories.

The second half of the talk will be on preparation and CO2 uptake performance of microporous carbon materials synthesized from asphalt, a very inexpensive carbon source. Carbonization of asphalt with potassium hydroxide (KOH) at high temperatures (>600 ºC) yields porous carbon materials (A-PC900) with high surface areas of up to 4200 m2 g-1 and high CO2 uptake performance of  30 mmol g-1 or 130 wt% at 30 bar and 25 ºC. This is the highest reported CO2 uptake among the family of the activated porous carbonaceous materials. Thus the porous carbon materials from asphalt have excellent properties for reversibly capturing CO2 at the well-head during the extraction of natural gas, a naturally occurring high pressure (~30 bar) source of CO2. Through a pressure swing sorption process, when the asphalt-derived material is returned to 1 bar, the CO2 is released, thereby rendering a reversible capture medium that is highly efficient yet very inexpensive.

Almaz S. Jalilov received his undergraduate degree (chemistry) from the Higher Chemical College of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia, in 2005. In 2011, he received his Ph.D. degree in chemistry from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA, with Professor Stephen F. Nelsen, specializing in physical organic chemistry. Subsequently, he was a postdoctoral fellow in DNA photonics lab led by Professor Frederick D. Lewis at Northwestern University, USA, where he was involved in synthesis and photophysical properties of chemically modified DNA hairpins. Since January of 2014, he has been working as a postdoc in the group of Professor James M. Tour at Rice University, USA, working on the synthesis of carbon nanomaterials for gas separations. His research interests include physical organic chemistry, (organic) materials science, synthesis, electrochemistry, and catalysis.

  Courtesy: SAICSC-ACS