Congratulations to our Ph.D. student Marco Rollo for his scientific publication entitled "Depolymerization of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) under mild conditions by Lewis/Brønsted acidic deep eutectic solvents" in Chemical Engineering Journal. Bifunctional Lewis/Brønsted acidic DESs composed of FeCl3⋅6H2O, cheap and scarcely toxic, in combination with a variety of acids, both mineral and organic, have been prepared for PET depolymerization. LBDES formed with methanesulfonic acid and para-toluenesulfonic acid are capable of quantitatively depolymerizing PET under mild conditions, with a temperature of 100 °C and a reaction time of 1 h, affording high purity terephthalic acid in high yield.
Congratulations to our Ph.D. student Alberto Picchi for his publication entitled: “Waterborne Acrylic Resin Containing Luminescent Eu3+ Pigments for Luminescent Solar Concentrators”. Promising semi-transparent thin-film LSCs are obtained by drop-casting a dispersion of a commercially available Eu3+ chelate pigment in an aqueous acrylic resin.
Congratulations to our Ph.D. student Francesca Binacchi for her scientific publication entitled “A biophysical study of the interactions of palladium(II), platinum(II) and gold(III) complexes of aminopyridyl-2,2′-bipyridine ligands with RNAs and other nucleic acid structures” in Dalton Transactions. Metal compounds form an attractive class of ligands for a variety of nucleic acids. Five metal complexes bearing aminopyridyl-2,2′-bipyridine tetra dentate ligands and possessing a quasi-planar geometry were challenged toward different types of nucleic acid molecules including RNA polynucleotides in duplex or triplex form, an RNA Holliday four-way junction, natural double helix DNA and DNA G-quadruplex.
Congratulations to our Ph.D. student Alberto Gobbo for his scientific publication entitled “Ruthenium (II)–Tris-pyrazolylmethane Complexes Inhibit Cancer Cell Growth by Disrupting Mitochondrial Calcium Homeostasis” in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry. Studies on the medicinal potential of ruthenium complexes containing a tridentate tris(1-pyrazolyl)methane ligand are almost absent in the literature. A straightforward route to access a family of novel, robust and water-soluble cationic ruthenium(II)–tpm complexes was developed. One key ligand modulates both the amphiphilic character and the strength of the ruthenium–chloride bond, which may be implicated in the activation mechanism.
