[Project supported by FrenchBIC] Nikolaos Kostopoulos: Cryo-spectroelectrochemical UV-Vis study of the electrochemical activation of O2 with Fe porphyrins

Nikolaos Kostopoulos, from the Laboratoire d’Electrochimie Moléculaire in Paris, spent one week in the lab Dr. Nicolas Le Poul at Laboratoire de Chimie et Electrochimie Moléculaires et Chimie Analytique. This project was supported by a grant from FrenchBIC.

The main goal of my PhD is the electrochemical generation of intermediate species that are formed during the reduction of O2 by Fe porphyrins, as a greener alternative for achieving catalytic oxidation of substrates. Encouraged by results that we obtained in our laboratory. I wanted to study my system, that is simple Fe porphyrins such as Fe tetraphenyl porphyrin in DMF and acetonitrile in presence of O2, with an efficient cryo-spectroelectrochemistry set-up in Brest, in collaboration with Dr. Nicolas Le Poul at Laboratoire de Chimie et Electrochimie Moléculaires et Chimie Analytique. Thanks to a grant from FrenchBIC, I spent one week in this laboratory performing low temperature UV-Vis spectroelectrochemistry experiments. Firstly, I studied the intermediates that are produced during electrochemical O2 reduction by FeF20TPPCl in presence of a strong acid in DMF solutions. Secondly, I studied the intermediates that are produced when FeTPPCl reduces O2 electrochemically in absence of acid. The results were promising. We will keep our collaboration to further analyze their activity. I am thankful to FrenchBIC for the grant and to Dr. Nicolas Le Poul and his team for hosting me, it has been a great experience.

Nikos Kostopoulos