This introductory chemistry textbook was compiled by Shelby Hatch at Northwestern University and is adapted from the following sources:
"Introductory Chemistry" by David W. Ball, The Saylor Foundation, Cleveland State University, is licensed
under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 and is available at https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/textbooks/introductory-chemistry ; "Chemistry of Cooking" by Sorangel Rodriguez-Velazquez, American...
Electrochemical cell devices are increasingly being sought for energy conversion and storage applications due to their high efficiencies and their potential for operating free of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Solid Acid Electrochemical Cells (SAECs), which most commonly employ CsH2PO4 (CDP) as the electrolyte component, are uniquely suited to meet the...
The work of this dissertation seeks to enhance the understanding of DNA-driven nanoparticle assembly and introduce kinetic routes to control mesoscale crystal habit and size. Chapter 1 describes the state of the art in the field of nanoparticle assembly and, specifically, DNA- mediated nanoparticle assembly, where the concept of a...
Techniques in atomic physics have delivered some of the most precise measurements ever made, with frequency measurements reaching fractional precisions of 10^18 . High precision measurements can be used to test fundamental physics, such as pursuing a variation in fundamental constants. A finite drift in measurable constants such as the...
Synthetic organic chemistry continues to be a driver in the discovery and development of new molecules for applications in biology, medicine, crop science, polymer science, and materials science. Central to the continued development of this field is the pursuit of new strategies and methods for the efficient construction of molecules...
Small molecules such as indanes, chromanes, tetralins and their derivatives play a significant role in drug discovery due to their potent biological activity. This research herein presents a facile Brønsted acid-catalyzed allylsilane annulation methodology to generate fused ring systems such as indanes. The reaction goes through a homoallylic intermediate which...
In this dissertation, efforts are detailed to utilize semiquinoid bridging ligands to impart strong magnetic coupling between metal centers. Chapter 1 introduces the synthetic challenge of realizing molecule-based magnets with high operating temperatures due to weak magnetic coupling between spin centers through large, diamagnetic ligands. An alternative strategy is described...
This dissertation develops computational models to study the optical coupling between plasmonic nanoparticles and quantum emitters. A large number of nanophotonic applications function by using either plasmon enhanced fields to enhance optical processes within quantum emitters or the sensitivity of plasmon resonances to their environment. Developing computational methods to fully...
Nonlinear optical (NLO) effects are used universally in modern day telecommunication and form the foundation of emergent photonic technologies. Twisted intramolecular charge transfer (TICT) chromophores, composed of a donor and acceptor fragment connected by a twisted bi-aryl bridge, combine large molecular NLO response with properties such as transparency in the...
Bimetallic polymerization catalysis represents a small, though active, area of research due largely to the interesting properties observed in the resulting product polymers, including higher molecular weight, increased comonomer incorporation, and enhanced tacticity. Current work is focused on furthering an understanding of the active catalytic species that give rise to...
The thermodynamics and kinetics of electron transfer reactions in catalysis, energy conversion and storage, and plasmon-driven chemistry depend strongly on nanoscale electrode surface structure. To elucidate the structure-function relationships that determine nanoscale electrochemical reactivity, it is necessary to observe electron transfer reactions one molecule at a time. Over the past...
Ultrafast, multi-dimensional coherent spectroscopy (MD-CS) has enabled scientists to probe fundamental aspects of chemical and photo-physical reactions on the nanosecond to femtosecond timescales. Using MD-CS, scientific contributions ranging from increased understanding of energy transfer in photosynthetic biological proteins to correlating the motion of electrons in semiconductors have been achieved. Concurrent...
The objective of this work has been the design of new lubricant additives to target friction in the boundary lubrication regime and the hydrodynamic lubrication regime. Modern automotive engines operate at higher temperatures and speeds than ever before, and therefore require new and more effective lubricant additives to meet higher...
Spherical nucleic acids (SNAs) are a class of structures composed of spherical nanoparticle cores that are densely functionalized with radially oriented, linear DNA. SNAs exhibit properties that are distinct from those of their linear counterparts. These constructs can readily enter cells, evade nuclease degradation, and bind complementary DNA targets with...
Self-assembled monolayers as tunable chemical platforms broadly enable the study of the interaction between biological species and synthetic surfaces. Unlike small molecule chemistry where the freely diffusible product can interact with biological targets as an inhibitor or probe, interfacial chemistry allows for the controlled and multi-valent presentation of ligands to...
Fused polycyclic scaffolds with three-dimensional complexity from an array of stereocenters compose the core structures of countless natural product families with a variety of desirable biological activity. The development of synthetic methods and strategies to afford rapid access to these structures is essential to expose a wealth of untapped biological...
Organic Photovoltaic (OPV) materials are of great interest as a low-cost material the purposes of achieving wide spread, solar energy adoption. However, a limiting factor in materials development is the ability to proactively determine the active layer thin film morphology that largely informs device performance. Thus, understanding how materials design...
Organic Photovoltaic (OPV) materials are of great interest as a low-cost material the purposes of achieving wide spread, solar energy adoption. However, a limiting factor in materials development is the ability to proactively determine the active layer thin film morphology that largely informs device performance. Thus, understanding how materials design...
The tools of computational chemistry allow researchers to gain insight into chemical systems that would be difficult or impossible to gain experimentally. This dissertation discusses the application of several of these computational tools to chemical systems of interest. First, we present several studies of plasmon resonance in Ag nanoclusters using...
The projected increase in the use of nanomaterials raises concerns about adverse impacts new technologies utilizing these materials may have on the environment. These concerns can be addressed from a chemical perspective by studying how emerging nanomaterials interact with biological systems. Fundamentally, the key interactions for nanomaterial uptake into a...