Karolína Salvadori and Lukáš Tomaník were successful in the Dagmar Procházková Fund call for proposals
Financial support from the Dagmar Procházková Fund is awarded to scientific projects whose successful completion has the potential to establish an independent research direction at UCT Prague. This year, two projects from the Department of Analytical Chemistry were successful in the call for proposals. Congratulations to Karolína Salvadori and Lukáš Tomaník!
Ing. Karolína Salvadori, Ph.D., received funding for her project, "Spectroscopy and electrochemistry as effective tools for rational access to a detailed understanding of the interaction between electron-deficient aromatics and electron-rich compounds." The project addresses questions such as: What causes pronounced colour changes in solutions when two different substances are mixed? How can we understand the chemical processes responsible for these changes, and how can this knowledge be put to practical use? The research will focus on interactions between electron-rich and electron-deficient compounds. These interactions may be non-covalent or may lead to chemical reactions, and both types of processes can be accompanied by striking colour changes. However, colour alone cannot reveal what is actually happening in a solution, as similar visual effects can arise from entirely different processes, some of which may even occur simultaneously. The project will therefore first investigate simpler model systems to clarify the mechanisms underlying these phenomena and distinguish between different types of interactions and reactions, ranging from non-covalent anion–π interactions and the formation of charge-transfer complexes to processes involving radical anions or Meisenheimer complexes. A key objective will be to determine how the properties of the molecules themselves and external conditions influence these processes. The research will combine spectroscopic, electrochemical and theoretical methods. The knowledge gained will subsequently be used to develop supramolecular receptors designed on the basis of a detailed understanding of simpler model systems. In the future, these receptors could find applications in the development of selective chemical sensors.
Ing. Lukáš Tomaník, Ph.D., will lead the project "Deciphering 3D liquid interfaces with synchrotron X-ray spectroscopies," focusing on a major challenge in modern chemistry–studying liquid interfaces at the atomic level. The project will develop a unique "angstrom ruler" using synchrotron X-ray spectroscopies. This will directly allow to resolve key questions in atmospheric chemistry and nuclear fuel reprocessing. The funding will also support establishing and developing a new research group focused on photoemission spectroscopy of liquids at the Department of Analytical Chemistry.
The fund providing this financial support is named after Ing. Dagmar Procházková, CSc., a graduate of the Faculty of Chemical Technology at UCT Prague in Inorganic Chemistry and the Faculty of Chemical Engineering at UCT Prague in Technical Cybernetics. The fund was established using a donation from her estate.