Jeffrey Elbert- Research Interests and Opportunities

I welcome undergraduate students to consider working in my group on chemistry and related projects. The projects can last any length of time and fulfill many different academic goals. Research for credit (independent study, honors sections, etc), research for work study or summer stipend (Summer Fellowship and research grant support, subject to availability) or other class credit is possible. All research projects in my group are serious projects for which I am actively seeking grant support. There are no canned projects. This means I ask serious effort from the people working with me.

Students that do well in my research group typically have completed Organic Chemistry I and II and Organic Lab and have taken or are enrolled in Physical Chemistry Kinetics/Quantum/Spectroscopy and Physical Chemistry Thermodynamics. Advanced Lab and Organic Structure Analysis are also useful courses as well as Advanced Organic.

I am looking for students that are curious and willing to spend time thinking about the project. If you are looking for a challenging project that will require you to push yourself beyond your coursework, I have several projects that may be of interest to you.

Please see me if you are interested in a research project.

All projects in my group require students to learn and use a variety of instrumentation and techniques. You will routinely use NMR, GC/MS, IR and HPLC. In addition, UV-Vis and fluorescence spectrophotometry are also used. Several projects will rely on laser spectroscopy (kinetic absorption and flash photolysis). Vacuum line techniques, chromatography, synthetic techniques and general photolysis techniques are all important.

The projects I am currently focused on are;

Naphthalimde Ligands

                Naphthalimides substituted with polyamines have proven to be very interesting transition metal and post-transition metal probes.  The coordination of the ligand with a metal ion is studied by absorbance, fluorescence, NMR, and pH.  We are currently measuring the effect of different metal ions and different metal ion concentrations on the signals from each type of spectroscopy, as well as measuring the complexation coefficients by pH titration.  We are trying to determine the metal ion property that best correlates with the effect on the spectroscopic property measured and the complexation strength.

Charge Transfer Compounds as Sensitizers for Dye Sensitized Solar Cells

Compounds coupling electron donor groups with electron acceptor groups through a conjugated system are targets in our efforts to make new sensitizers for photovoltaic devices, specifically, Dye Sensitized Solar Cells. Spatially separated frontier orbitals are necessary for charge injection to a semiconductive (TiO₂) layer.

We are coupling fluoreneone acceptor with ferrocene donor.

We are also coupling diaryl and triaryl amino donors with various acceptors.