Chapter 4 - Jacobs University

Highlights of Ph.D. Thesis
Jacobs University, Bremen, Germany
10/2004- to date
Polyoxometalates are of interest because they exhibit tremendous structural variety and have
vast applications in the field of magnetic, photochemistry, catalysis, medicine and
electrochemical properties. However, the POM matrix may be considered as being a
diamagnetic host encapsulating and thereby isolating the magnetic cluster of transition metals.
From the magnetism point of view, incorporation of more and more exchange-coupled
paramagnetic transition-metal ions into these POM frameworks may result in molecules with
high-spin ground states, large spin anisotropies, hysteresis etc Such materials are ultimately of
technical interest in the areas of data storage materials, magnetic switches, and so on. These
polyoxometalates are not quite common in today’s collection of magnetic molecules. They
combine structural variety, nontrivial physics and a well-known mechanism of formation
commonly described as self-assembly. My thesis work mainly concerned is derivatizing the
polyoxoanion involving the attachment of the diamagnetic and paramagnetic transition metal
ions to the surface of the metal-oxo framework of the precursor.
Synthesis of paramagnetic and diamagnetic metal substituted polyoxoanions which has
been characterized by analytical methods like, IR, single crystal XRD, NMR ( 1 H, 13 C, 31 P, 183 W,
51 V, 195 Pt, 29 Si, 11 B), Elemental analysis, Thermal analysis (TGA-DTA) and Dynamic Light
Scattaring.
The objective of the study is to explore the synthesis of novel diamagnetic and
paramagnetic transition metal substituted polyoxoanions and to study the stability of the
polyoxoanion in solution, which is characterized by the aforementioned analytical techniques.
Instrumentations Skills
Hands-on experience in handling and usage of Single crystal XRD (Smart Apex, Bruker),
Infrared spectroscopy, Diffused Reflectance Infrared spectroscopy, Thermal techniques, UVvisible
spectroscopy, Powder X-ray diffraction, Gas Chromatography, Dynamic Light Scattering,
Multi Nuclear NMR spectroscopy (JEOL), Cyclic Voltamerty (CV).
Computer Skills
Origin, Photoshop, End Note, Sigma Graph, Diamond crystallographic software, MS Office,
HTML, ChemDraw, ISIS Draw and Mes-Trec for NMR.
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