New Paper Alert: First Titan Cocrystal Irradiation Study
Just appearing online is Larissa’s exciting work performing the first laboratory photolysis of a planetary cocrystal. Targeting the pyridine:acetylene system, through FTIR and mass spec we show that the morphology and temperature of mixed ices impact on the product distribution. Follow the link to check out the PCCP article:
Vandi Verma Lab Tour
It was our absolute pleasure to welcome Dr Vandi Verma, chief engineer for Mars rover missions at NASA JPL, to stop by the Ennis lab during her Dunedin visit and discuss future Solar System exploration and the growing contributions of New Zealand researchers in support of these missions. Evidently Naila had an exciting day discussing recent Mars discoveries as a detour from recent interstellar dust surface chemistry.
Lily’s cover article in ACS Earth & Space Chemistry
Check out Ennis & Garden group MSc graduate Lily Clague’s impressive work on the bottom-up formation of benzene from acetylene on olivine mineral surfaces; featured on the cover of ACS Earth & Space Chemistry. The spectroscopy wasn’t quite at the stage to make the article although we are currently making headway into experimental validation of her theoretical work.
Clague et al. (2024) ACS Earth Space Chem. 2024, 8, 5, 945–956
Congratulations Tait! NASA JPL Internship for 2024.
Awesome, awesome news with Ennis group PhD Tait Francis receiving one of only six New Zealand Space Agency/NASA scholarships to intern at the Jet Propulsion Laboratories for 3 months starting June. Here is Tait receiving this prestigious award from the Minister of Space at a ceremony at Parliament. We look forward to hearing updates from Tait as he contributes to experimental research on complex organic molecules in Titan’s atmosphere. Read more about the opportunity here:
Welcome New Members Ennis Group 2024
Welcome to MSc students Jacob and Jake, who will be working on silicate grain surface reactions and host-guest interactions in MOFs respectively. Also welcome to Rebecca who will be unleashing the group’s new electron source on Titan relevant ices working with postdoc Naila.
Finally, a big thanks to friend of the group Helen Maynard-Casely who had a week at Otago to finish up some co-crystal structure refinement with Larissa and Tait. A fun and productive visit!
Big things in 2024!
Larissa’s USyd visit and IUCr2023 Poster
This August Larissa has been super busy “across the ditch” performing Titan cocrystal XRD experiments with collaborators Sam Duyker and the Kennedy group at USyd before heading down to Melbourne to mix with the world’s crystallographers at IUCr2023. Here she is in front of her awesome poster with co-supervisor Helen Maynard-Casely. Sounds like an idea filled supervisor debrief to come from Larissa’s extensive networking!!
Congratulations MSc Graduate Lily Clague
Awesome news with the graduation of MSc student Lily Clague. Lily worked on some tricky experiments toward the formation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons on mineral surfaces, coupled with some excellent quantum calculations under co-supervision of AProf Anna Garden. Lily has a fantastic industry role lined up in Christchurch, where we are excited about her placement and anticipate some excellent science on the horizon.
New Paper: Hydrogenation of NO on Ice
Out today in ACS Earth & Space Chemistry is Sam’s fantastically comprehensive computational study on the hydrogenation of NO on water ice surfaces; the first publication from an internal UO Chemistry collaboration between the Ennis and the Anna Garden groups. Awesome work Sam… we’ll sort out the surface spectroscopy side yet!
Read here: McIntyre, Ennis & Garden (2023) ACS Earth & Space Chemistry
2023 Synchrotron Visit – Macreadie & Hanton Groups
A weekend of excellent science at the Australian Synchrotron with Lauren Macreadie (UNSW) and Lyall Hanton (Otago) groups. PhD students Elliot Nicholson and Nick Page arrived with a stack of interesting new MOF materials for us to collect diffraction data (MX2) and variable temperature far-IR (THz). Now on with the analysis!
New in JPCA: Identification of cocrystal thin-films by IR
Just out in JPCA is Tait’s first studies into the formation of the C6H6:C2H2 (1:1) cocrystal under laboratory vacuum conditions; confirmed by transmission IR and application of group theory. This work will underpin his PhD work toward new C6H6 containing cocrystals under Titan conditions. Nice cover Tait! Click here to have a read.
