In the Rijs Research Group, we envisage a world where building a brand new catalyst or an artificial enzyme is as simple as following an architectural plan for a house. At the moment this is difficult because we don't even fully understand the construction materials! Our research investigates the intrinsic properties of molecular building-blocks and their "constructed" aggregates, moving us towards the ability to draw up these molecular blueprints from scratch.
We utilize a range of cutting edge technologies in our chemical analyses, including high resolution ion-mobility, advanced mass spectrometry, computational chemistry, combinatorial robotics and synthetic methods. We are interested in structure-function relationships, mechanism, theory underpinning chemical reactions and catalysis, chemical data crunching, and methodological development (for mass spectrometry and ion-mobility). Mass spectrometry allows us to know what is in a molecule or assembly, while ion mobility lets us know how it is arranged - using them together we can assign exactly what we have made in milliseconds and generate automated data! |