Dr. Steve Liddle, a Royal Society University Research Fellow and Lecturer within the School of Chemistry, has been awarded a major €1M Starting Independent Researcher Grant (StG) from the newly established European Research Council (ERC).
The award, which is the first ERC StG to be won by the University of Nottingham, will support new projects and ideas for fundamental molecular uranium chemistry by developing new compounds containing uranium-metal bonds, assessing their intrinsic reactivity patterns, defining structure-bonding relationships, and developing a better understanding of actinide chemical bonding from an integrated experimental and theoretical approach.
"Uranium suffers somewhat from negative PR" says Dr. Liddle, however there is great potential for complexes of Uranium-238 (depleted uranium) to provide new catalysts, nuclear waste separation technologies and provide useful applications for the stocks of waste depleted uranium around the world. The project will also provide valuable knowledge about Actinide chemistry, one of the least understood sections of the periodic table.
The ERC StG scheme aims to identify and support the very best and creative early career independent researchers in Europe via 5-year consolidated funding to pursue speculative and ground-breaking frontier research.
Dr. Liddle’s work has attracted much interest internationally and has been highlighted in journals such as Chemistry World, Chemical and Engineering News and Chemistry in Australia this year. Dr. Liddle has obtained several previous grants related to this work including one from EPSRC entitled UNCLE: Uranium in Non-Conventional Ligand Environments as well as funding from the Royal Society and was an invited speaker at this year’s ACS conference. He also features on the School of Chemistry Periodic Table of Videos ( www.periodicvideos.com ).
Posted on Friday 6th November 2009