Activities

This page presents the current and upcoming activities organised by the consortium. For past events, check our Previous Activities page.

Annual Meeting 2023

24^th-27^th April 2023, Saariselkä 🇫🇮

Helsinki University is welcoming us for our last Annual Meeting. the meeting will take at Santa’s Hotel Tunturi in Saariselkä, Finland.
More details will be made available at a later date.

Global Women’s Breakfast 2023

14^th February 2023, 10:00 CET
Digital seminar and physical breakfasts at UiT, UiO, HU & UoI

NordCO₂ is proud to again participate to IUPAC’s Global Women’s Breakfast event, at the occasion of the UN International Day of Women and Girls in Science. We are organising a digital seminar open to all, as well as physical breakfasts at several of the NordCO₂ locations: UiT, UiO, HU, and UoI. Our seminar will consist of a guest lecture by Associate Professor Melina Duarte from the Department of Philosophy at UiT The Arctic University of Norway, followed by local discussions at each of our locations, with invited guests (tbc).

After the lecture, questions from the chat will be answered before we shut down the digital part of the event.

The session will be chaired by Associate Professor Marius Myreng Haugland from the Department of chemistry at UiT.

You can register for the digital seminar here.

Local event in Tromsø, Norway (10:00 AM local time)

The NordCO₂ consortium, in collaboration with the CAGE and AKMA projects, invites the employees of the Faculty of Science and Technology to join us at Teorifagbygget hus 6, Auditorium 3 (6.303) at 10:00 CET on the 14th of February 2023. The number of seats is limited to 150, and there will be breakfast. You can register for the local Tromsø event here.

After the seminar, we invite all physical attendees to participate in a discussion together with several groups focused on diversity/inclusion at our faculty as well as invited guests. Amongst them, the “Justice, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion” (JEDI) group from the Department of Geosciences will join us, as well as Professor Giuliana Panieri (CAGE), and Elisavet Kozyri from the “Better balance in informatics” (BBI) project.

If you are interested in joining as invited guest, please contact the NordCO₂ Project Manager Marie-J. H. Halsør at marie-josee.h.halsor@uit.no.

Code of conduct:

This event is open to all employees of the Faculty of Science and Technology at UiT The Arctic University of Norway.

The purpose of this event is to encourage discussion about themes linked to diversity and inclusivity in our workplace. To ensure a constructive discussion, we ask that all attendees observe the following:

• Courtesy: all participants are to be treated with respect and consideration. This encompasses all actions and communication endeavours. Discrimination and harassment in any shape or form will not be tolerated and should be reported to the organisers of the meeting.
• Constructive criticism of ideas: individuals are not the target of the discussion. All participants have freedom of thought and expression and the diversity of their views and opinions should be valued.

Local event in Oslo, Norway (10:00 AM local time)

Details coming soon!

Local events in Helsinki, Finland (NordCO2 seminar at 11:00 AM local time)

In addition to a local event organised by NordCO₂, the Finnish Chemical Society is also hosting an event (at 09:00 AM local time), featuring a talk from our own Petra S. Vasko (https://iupac.org/gwb/2023/iupac-global-womens-breakfast-2023-finland/). Details pertaining to the NordCO₂ local event coming soon!

Local event in Uppsala, Sweden (NordCO2 seminar at 10:00 AM local time)

The Ångström laboratory from Uppsala University is organising a local event at 08:15 AM local time. You can read more about it from the event page: https://iupac.org/gwb/2023/global-womens-breakfast-uppsala/

Local event in Reykjavík, Iceland (09:00 AM local time)

Details coming soon!

Monthly Seminars

The NordCO₂ Monthly Seminars is a series of lectures by experts in the fields relevant to the NordCO₂ consortium as well as student talks about their recently published works. The seminars are organised each month by a different institution from the NordCO₂ consortium, and the lectures are often accessible to the public. The seminars are held in Zoom, and registration links are in the description of each event.

January 2023: UiT the Arctic University of Norway 🇳🇴

31^st January 2023, 14:00-16:00 CET
Zoom meeting – Register here!

The seminar will consist of two talks, by Dr. Ashot Gevorgyan from the Department of Chemistry at UiT The Arctic University of Norway and by Dr. Brian V. Popp from the Department of Chemistry at West Virginia University, WV, USA.

Ashot obtained his MSc degree in pharmacology in 2011 at Yerevan State University, Armenia. After completing his MSc, he moved to Germany to pursue doctoral studies in the group of Prof. Peter Langer, University of Rostock. In 2015, he earned his PhD working on homogeneous catalysis and C-H functionalization of heterocycles. He then accomplished a 2 year postdoctoral studies in the group of Dr. Viktor O. Iaroshenko at the Center of Molecular and Macromolecular Studies in Lodz, Poland. In 2018, Ashot moved to UiT The Arctic University of Norway, where he carried out further postdoctoral studies with Prof. Kathrin H. Hopmann and Prof. Annette Bayer. In 2021, he established his group at the department of chemistry, UiT The Arctic University of Norway. His research interests cover several directions in green chemistry including CO₂ fixation and application of biomass-derived chemicals for organic synthesis.
Title of the lecture:
“CO₂ fixation in the arctic”
Abstract:
CO₂ is the most sustainable carbon source. The main obstacle limiting the widespread use of CO₂ in the synthesis of chemicals is its pronounced inertness. Our research is primarily focused on the development of new methodologies for the C-C bond forming reactions involving CO₂ (see figure below).^1-5 For instance, we could demonstrate that for the hydrocarboxylation of certain olefins the use of expansive ligands and catalysts is not necessary.^1,2 On top of that, for the first time we have shown that CO₂ capture and utilization can be performed in renewable solvents.³ In another study we have developed a selective methodology for the C-H carboxylation of unactivated arenes with CO₂.⁴ The methodologies developed by us can be applied for the production of pharmaceuticals and for the late-stage functionalization of value-added products. In my talk, I will summarize these findings and will present our perspectives on the development of this field of research.
References

1. A. Gevorgyan, M. F. Obst, Y. Guttormsen, F. Maseras, K. H. Hopmann, A. Bayer, Chem. Sci. 2019, 10, 10072-10078.
2. M. F. Obst, A. Gevorgyan, A. Bayer, K. H. Hopmann, Organometallics 2020, 39, 1545-1552.
3. A. Gevorgyan, K. H. Hopmann, A. Bayer, ChemSusChem 2020, 13, 2080-2088.
4. A. Gevorgyan, K. H. Hopmann, A. Bayer, Chem. Eur. J. 2020, 26, 6064-6069.
5. L. Pavlovic, M. Pettersen, A. Gevorgyan, J. Vaitla, A. Bayer, K. H. Hopmann, Eur. J. Org. Chem. 2021, 663-670.

Brian received B.S. and M.S. degrees in Chemistry from Wright State University in 2001 and 2002, working with Prof. Vladimir Katovic. He continued his graduate work in mechanistic inorganic/organometallic chemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison under the mentorship of Prof. Shannon Stahl. He received a Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry in 2007 for his work unraveling the details of the oxygenation of reduced-Pd species relevant to homogeneous aerobic oxidation catalysis. In 2008, he moved to Rice University as a J. Evans Attwell-Welch Postdoctoral Fellow in the laboratory of Prof. Zach Ball where developed enzyme-like approaches for site-selective peptide and protein modification using dirhodium-metallopeptides. In 2011, he began his independent career as a tenure-track assistant professor in the C. Eugene Bennett Department of Chemistry at West Virginia University (WVU) and, in 2019, was promoted to associate professor. He has established an active, externally funded research group focused on developing new and improving existing synthetic methods using earth-abundant transitional metal catalysts. Since 2019, he has also been the Chemistry Director of Graduate Studies and, since 2016, co-led a National Science Foundation Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) site in Chemistry at the WVU Chemistry Department.
Title of the lecture:
“Difunctionalization of alkenes with boron and CO₂“
Abstract:
The hetero(element)carboxylation of unsaturated organic substrates is useful due to the installation of a carboxylic acid, using the C1 feedstock CO₂, as well as a synthetically versatile hetero(element)-carbon bond. In 2016, we reported the first method to achieve 1,2-borylative-carboxylation (boracarboxylation) of an alkene (vinyl arene).¹ The mild method uses redox-neutral NHC-copper(I) catalysis and a single atmosphere of CO₂ to obtain boron-functionalized α-aryl carboxylic acids, including novel functionalized-NSAIDs such as bora-ibuprofen and bora-naproxen. The products can be further elaborated through a variety of reactions at the C–B bond. In recent years, understanding CO₂ pressure effects and use of secondary additives, such as mono- and bis-phosphine ligands, have led to the marked broadening of the substrate scope.^2,3 Mechanistic insights from well-defined, isolable copper complexes and complimentary computational studies have revealed important details about the operative reaction pathways.^4,5
References

1. Butcher, T. W.; McClain, E. J.; Hamilton, T. G.; Perrone, T. M.; Kroner, K. M.; Donohoe, G. C.; Akhmedov, N. G.; Petersen, J. L.; Popp, B. V. Org. Lett. 2016, 18, 6428-6431.
2. Perrone, T. M.; Gregory, A. S.; Knowlden, S. W.; Ziemer, N. R.; Alsulami, R. N.; Petersen, J. L.; Popp, B. V. ChemCatChem 2019, 11, 5814-5820.
3. Knowlden, S. W.; Popp, B. V. Organometallics 2022, 41, 1883-1891.
4. Baughman, N. N; Akhmedov, N. G.; Petersen, J. L.; Popp, B. V. Organometallics 2021, 40, 23-37.
5. Baughman, N. N; Popp, B. V. Comment Inorg. Chem. 2020, 40, 159-175.