PRESENTS A SEMINAR

Speaker:

Dr. Damir SAFIN

Chief expert, R&D department (NIOST LLC), SIBUR holding, Tomsk, Russian Federation

Abstract:                                                                                                                    

Porous materials (PMs) have been known for several decades as containers to trap and store different guest compounds.

The starting point of intense use of PMs was the pioneering research studies of Yaghi and co-workers, who suggested the

 first efficient synthetic approach to build up controlled metal-organic frameworks, abbreviated to MOFs. Nowadays,

MOFs are of great importance and a continuously attracting family of PMs to guest a variety of substrates. 

Zeolitic imidazolate frameworks (ZIFs) are an outstanding class of MOFs, constructed from tetrahedrally configured

 transition metal cations linked through bridging imidazolate (Im) spacers. ZIFs are structurally isiomorphic to zeolites

 since the metal-Im-metal angle is similar to the Si–O–Si angle (145°) in the latter compounds. This feature was 

exploited to produce a huge variety of porous transition metal-based ZIFs. Our initial goal was to combine Im and 

alkali metal borohydrides in the same structure with the formation of porous borohydride compounds, where Im 

serves as a structural unit of the framework, while borohydride anions provide with functionality (i.e. efficient host

-guest interactions through the hydridic H^–). Surprisingly, we found that alkali and alkaline earth metal-based

 imidazolates, to the best of our knowledge, are not structurally characterized so far, although they are usually 

generated in situ followed by the metathesis reaction with transition metal salts to produce corresponding

 ZIFs. This might be explained both by their general unavailability and by efficient hydrolysis under mild conditions. 

Thus, the coordination chemistry of Im towards alkali and alkaline earth metal cations remains a challenge. With this

 in mind and inspired by the fascinating storage properties of ZIFs, we have turned our attention to Im-based 

coordination compounds with Li⁺, Na⁺, K⁺ and Mg²⁺ as well as determination of their structures. During

 my presentation, I will report on the synthesis, characterization and crystal structures of complexes of Li⁺, Na⁺, 

K⁺ and Mg²⁺, and Im and ImH.

Biography:

Dr. Damir SAFIN is currently a chief expert of the Scientific expertise unit of the R&D department (NIOST LLC) of

 the SIBUR holding (the biggest company in Eastern Europe for gas processing and petrochemicals), and is in 

charge of scientific expertise of projects addressed to the SIBUR holding, scientific collaboration with 

Universities and Research centers as well as joint PhD students. Before joining the SIBUR holding Dr. SAFIN was

 a post doctoral research associate in the University of Muenster (Germany), University of Cologne (Germany), 

University of Rostock (Germany), University of Ottawa (Canada) and Universite catholique de Louvain

 (Belgium, two stays). Research interests of Dr. SAFIN cover a broad range of chemistry: analytical chemistry, 

inorganic chemistry, coordination chemistry, phosphororganic chemistry, supramolecular chemistry, macrocyclic 

compounds, metallocomplexes, nanomaterials, luminescent materials, magnetic materials, catalysis, materials 

for hydrogen and energy storage, Metal-Organic Frameworks. Dr SAFIN is a co-author of more than 150 papers 

in scientific journals, with an h-index of 21.

All faculty, researchers and graduate students are invited to attend.

                  There will be a get-together with refreshments at 10:45-11:00 a.m.