Producing more sustainable hydrogen

In March 2020, SciLifeLab launched a national covid-19 research program together with the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation (KAW). The program is now being extended and expanded, with an additional SEK 50 million from KAW. Prof. Helena Danielson and Prof. Ylva Ivarsson at the Department of Chemistry - BMC, Biochemistry, are among those who have received extended grants.

What did Alfred Nobel actually keep in his glass bottles? Prof. Adolf Gogoll, within the Organic Chemistry research programme at the Department of Chemistry - BMC, has helped the Nobel Prize Museum and the Swedish National Heritage Board to analyze the contents of 43 old chemical bottles that come from Alfred Nobel's laboratories. 

The Chemical Society in Uppsala awards a prize for the best degree project in chemistry, and for 2020, we are happy to learn that the prize goes to the Dutch Erasmus student Evelyn Coenen. Evelyn did her degree project in Prof. Jonas Bergquist's group within the Analytical Chemistry research programme at the Department of Chemistry - BMC, Uppsala University. Her supervisor was Kumari Ubhayasekera. 

Hydrogen for energy use can be extracted in an environmentally friendly way from water and sunlight, using photocatalytic composite polymer nanoparticles developed by Haining Tian's research group within the Physical Chemistry research programme at the Department of Chemistry - Ångström. 

The molecular details of how SARS-CoV-2 enters cells and infects them are still not clear. Prof. Ylva Ivarsson and her group at the Department of Chemistry - BMC, Biochemistry, have tested the bioinformatic predictions made by another research group and have identified receptors that could be important players in the process. 

Christine Dyrager, Assistant Professor in Organic Chemistry at the Department of Chemistry - BMC, has been elected as one of 12 young researchers for ChemMedChem's Early-Career Advisory Board (ECAB).

Prof. Jan Kihlberg, at the Department of Chemistry - BMC, Organic Chemistry, has been rewarded with the Ulla and Stig Holmquist Science Prize in Organic Chemistry for 2020. Jan is rewarded for his pioneering efforts in the field of carbohydrate chemistry and its applications for biomedical purposes.

The decision regarding the appointment of Vice-Chancellor that we have been waiting for since June, when the recruitment group and the Consistory decided that Prof. Anders Hagfeldt would be appointed Vice-Chancellor, has now been announced: On November 20, the Government decided that Anders Hagfeldt will be the new Vice-Chancellor of Uppsala University from 1 January, 2021.

Hydrogen gas and methanol are currently produced mainly from fossil sources, such as oil or natural gas. A more environmentally and climate-friendly alternative is to produce these substances from water and carbon dioxide using sustainable electricity. Prof. Sascha Ott and co-workers at Synthetic Molecular Chemistry have now developed a new material that is needed in the process - by using sunlight as a complement to electricity. The study is published in the journal Nature Communications.

The alumni Malin Källsten, a previous PhD student in Analytical Chemistry at the Department of Chemistry - BMC who defended her dissertation in March this year, has received this year's Phabian award for best doctoral thesis from the Swedish Pharmaceutical Society (Apotekarsocieteten).

The Royal Society of Sciences at Uppsala has decided to award the Thuréus Prize in the natural history-medical class to Prof. Lynn Kamerlin at the Department of Chemistry - BMC.

This year's Spring Conferment Ceremony, which was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic, will be held on the 13th of November – corona-proof. The ceremony will take place in three rounds – all on the same day and all streamed in real time.

Solar cells on trucks to reduce carbon dioxide emissions is one of the collaborative projects that Vinnova is focusing on in its Challenge-Driven Innovation initiative. Erik Johansson, Professor at the Department of Chemistry – Ångström, is leading the project.

Every year, Ny Teknik (New Technology) lists the most innovative and promising young technology companies for the year. And this year, THREE companies founded by researchers at the Department of Chemistry - Ångström are included in the list: Peapowl Solar Power and Altris, both new on the list, and Graphmatech who made the list in 2019 as well. 

The European research initiative BATTERY 2030+ is now getting going. The ambition is to make Europe a world-leader in the development and production of the batteries of the future. These batteries need to store more energy, have a longer life, and be safer and more environmentally friendly than today’s batteries in order to facilitate the transition to a more climate-neutral society. The project is led from Uppsala University.

Chao Zhang, assistant professor at the Structural Chemistry program was awarded ERC StG 2020 from European Research Council. His project DeepProton is on the development of new computational techniques for modelling electrified metal oxide nanostructures in electrochemical systems.

Congratulations Chao!

By using x-ray absorption in studies of nitrogen gas, and starting from an ion rather than from a neutral molecule one may get out much more detailed information. It is possible to make deeper analyses than what the established ESCA-method has made possible. This shows a new study from, among others, Uppsala University published in Physical Review Letters.

Because of the current situation that the world is in, many people work from home and might want to take online courses to increase their competence in certain areas. A course that is sought after by both the public and students is a course on batteries for electric vehicles.

Hundreds of protective face shields, face masks, safety glasses, aprons and bottles of hand sanitiser from Uppsala University were delivered to Uppsala University Hospital on Friday afternoon, in response to the acute shortage of certain items of personal protective equipment at the emergency services centre ahead of the weekend.

As a consequence of the outbreak of the coronavirus and the Swedish Government's recommendations to begin distance education, Uppsala University has switched to online teaching from 18 March. Felix Ho, Associate Professor at the Department of Chemistry – Ångström is someone who has worked a lot with online and digital tools for teaching.

Jacinto Sá from Physical Chemistry is one of the researchers involved in finding a less toxic blue dye. The research has quickly gotten worldwide spread and getting articles written in reputable newspapers like the NY Times.

Each year, the Göran Gustafsson Foundation give out several awards, one in particular is called the grand prize.

Farnaz Gahjeri and Mattias Ekelund both have a background from Uppsala University but also in subjects related to chemistry.
IKEM (The Innovation and Chemistry Industries in Sweden) has interviewed Farnaz and Mattias to show examples of what you as a chemistry student can work with after your studies.

Five members of the university’s staff have been awarded the Elder Gustaf Adolf Medal for extraordinarily significant works. Peter Wallenberg, chair of the board of the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, has been appointed an honorary member of Uppsala University.

Watch the clip about our battery research, with Kristina Edström, Daniel Brandell and more.

The Center for Swedish Batteries, "Batteries Sweden", is a brand new competence center for battery research that will start on February 6-7. The center is a collaboration between different universities and companies and will be coordinated by Uppsala University with Kristina Edström and Daniel Brandell, at the Ångström Advanced Battery Center, Department of Chemistry - Ångström, as project managers.

The Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (SSF) has decided to extend their funding to SwedNess research school. SwedNess is a graduate school for neutron scattering operated by six Swedish universities, coordinated by Uppsala University. SwedNess has the goal to educate doctoral students to expand Sweden's expertise in neutron scattering to exploit ESS, the European Spallation Source, now under construction in Lund. The financing consists of 100 million SEK until 2025.

We would like to congratulate professor Hammarström for receiving the Presidential Award of the Inter-American Photochemical Society.

Big congratulations!

The paper is a joint effort between several universities with Chemistry - Ångström represented through Marcus Lundberg, Jacinto Sá and Mickaël G. Delcey. It was recently highlighted in EurekAlert!.