About the Speaker:

Bio:

Dr. Aleksey Kuznetsov obtained his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Utah State University, USA. He graduated in 2003, after 3 years of doctorate studies, with a specialization in computational/theoretical chemistry. In 2019, after several postdoctoral and visiting professor positions in Germany (including an Alexander von Humboldt fellowship stay), the United States, and Brazil, he acquired a permanent faculty position at the Department of Chemistry, Universidad Técnica Federico Santa Maria, Chile, where he has been working on the computational design of various complexes of porphyrins, including core-modified porphyrins, with nanoparticles, fullerenes, and graphenes, along with computational studies of transition metal complexes, organic compounds with pharmacological applications, metal–fullerene complexes, compounds with anticorrosive properties, and more.

About the Seminar:

Title:

Design of novel building blocks for nanotechnology based on core-modified porphyrinoids

Abstract:

Molecular sizes, shapes, and various properties, and therefore potential applications, of porphyrinoids can be broadly and finely tuned by suitable structural modifications. A promising and effective strategy is the modification of the porphyrin core by replacing one or several pyrrole nitrogens with other heteroatoms such as chalcogens, C, Si, or P. The resulting compounds are known as heteroatom-substituted porphyrins or core-modified porphyrins. They possess interesting physicochemical properties and structural features, thus, the porphyrin core-modification a promising and fruitful methodology for designing versatile molecular building nanoblocks. Numerous studies, both experimental and computational, have been performed on porphyrinoids core-modified by various elements and on their current and potential applications. However, still the proper attention has not been given to the systematic design of novel types of building blocks for nanotechnology, formed by molecules or molecular assemblies/complexes, which are based on core-modified porphyrinoids. In the talk, the computational studies performed by Dr. Aleksey Kuznetsov on different core-modified porphyrinoids and various nanoblocks based on them are reviewed. Computational design of such novel nanoblocks along with detailed and thorough computational studies of their properties and potential applications are considered to be highly necessary and planned to be pursued further.