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Deborah Kays

Professor Deborah Kays

Professor

School of Chemistry

Users
Available for postgraduate supervision

Overview

We are organometallic chemists interested in the stabilisation of highly unsaturated compounds involving earth abundant main group and transition elements. These compounds often display unusual structures and reactivities associated with their coordinative unsaturation, which we investigate in applications such as small molecule activation and valorisation, novel reaction catalysis, energy storage and magnetism.

Our research projects involve inorganic and organic synthetic methods, small molecule reactions, catalysis, in situ reaction monitoring, mechanistic investigations and magnetism, using a range of physical characterisation methods including multinuclear NMR, IR, EPR and Mössbauer spectroscopies, X-ray diffraction and magnetochemistry, work collaboratively with other research groups.

Publication

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

Articles

Book sections

Websites

Research

Our research group is interested in the synthesis of low-coordinate organometallic complexes featuring main group or transition elements, these highly reactive compounds being stabilised by sterically demanding ligand systems. We are particularly interested in the exploitation of the unusual structures of these compounds and the investigation of fundamental patterns of reactivity under stoichiometric and catalytic regimes. Some representative projects within our research group involve:

-        Scission and homologation reactions of small molecules, valorisation

-        Earth abundant transition metal complexes for catalytic applications, e.g. heterofunctionalisation, cyclotrimerisation

-        Organometallic complexes for energy storage and catalysis

-        Multidentate ligand design for heterobimetallic complexes

-        Low-coordinate complexes for single molecule magnetism

Biography

MChem Chemistry (2000) and PhD (2004, S. Aldridge) at Cardiff University. Postdoctoral Research Associate, Cardiff University (2003-2005, S. Aldridge). Junior Research Fellow, Merton College, University of Oxford (2005-2007, with D. O’Hare). Appointed Lecturer in Inorganic Chemistry at University of Nottingham in 2007, promoted to Associate Professor in 2014 and to Professor in 2019. Appointed as Professor of Inorganic Chemistry and Head of School of Chemistry at Cardiff University in 2024.

Honours and awards

RSC Chemistry of the Transition Metals Award 2018

Professional memberships

Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry

Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy

Contact Details

Email KaysD@cardiff.ac.uk
Telephone +44 29 2251 4970
Campuses Main Building, Park Place, Cardiff, CF10 3AT