Chemistry Aarhus University

Overview

• Research in analytical chemistry is focused on investigation of trace compounds mainly in environmental matrices.
• The primary field of inorganic chemistry research is the study and development of materials ranging from biological materials to functional materials. The work at Aarhus University focuses on changes occurring on the nanoscale and  the materials studied are used for e.g. hydrogen storage, thermoelectric elements, catalysts etc..  The studies encompass solid state synthesis, including experimental design of reactors, various analysis techniques including X-ray diffraction and other physico-chemical characterization method.
• The research in NMR spectroscopy focuses on development of experimental and theoretical methods in solid- and liquid-state NMR spectroscopy with applications to chemistry, materials science research, and structure and dynamics of biological macromolecules with relevance for molecular biology, drug development, and nanoscience.
• The research in organic chemistry is organized around the following areas: Organo-catalyzed reactions; organic surface chemistry focusing on modification of surfaces using organic molecules to create coatings and materials with controllable properties; organic nanochemistry using DNA as a programmable tool for building nanoarchitectures and functional structures from molecules and materials; synthetic organic chemistry, focusing on key reactions in the synthesis of a variety of bioactive compounds including studies of the mechanisms of electron transfer of various transition metal complexes and the design of artificial enzyme systems.
• Physical chemistry research is divided into three areas: 1) Ultrafast laser spectroscopy of chemical reaction dynamics, development of fiber lasers and supercontinuum sources, and laser control and manipulation of molecules and mesoscopic particles. 2) Oxygen microscopy and imaging focusing on developing tools and methods to create dynamic (singlet) oxygen-based images of heterogeneous samples that range from industrially important polymers to biological cells. 3) Physical chemistry of soft condensed matter focusing on studies of the structure and thermodynamics of polymers, block copolymers, and surfactants in solution.
• Theoretical chemistry research includes: 1) Biomodelling, focusing on using computational methods for understanding biochemical processes with respect to ligand binding, dynamical properties and reaction mechanisms, 2) Computational chemistry focusing on developing future force fields methods to be used in applications (reactions, protein dynamics, docking etc.) or influence in biomolecular recognition and 3) Quantum chemistry focusing on the theoretical development of the description of structure and properties of large molecular systems on the basis of quantum mechanics.

Employment after graduation

• Pharmaceutical industry, telecommunication industry, food industry, chemical software companies, domestic and foreign universities, wind mill industry, patent bureaus