Prof. Bjoern Winkler [Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University]

[SEMINAR] 

Speaker: Prof. Bjoern Winkler, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University in Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Title: Novel carbonates

Language: English presentation

Time: 15:00 - 16:00 PM, Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025

Place: Onsite at Conference room 410, bldg 6

Online: https://meeting.tencent.com/dm/OECpnhoyZRQo  Meeting ID: 375-510-092

Host:  Drs. Haozhe Liu and Lisa Liu

Abstract:

Carbonates are studied to address numerous questions in science and technology, as they are the major reservoir of carbon in the biosphere, hydrosphere, in soils and in the Earth's crust. They are important constituents in a large variety of consumer products, and play a fundamental role in technological processes. 

In order to be able to establish comprehensive and predictive models for structure-property relations of carbonates, it is necessary to understand their structures and stability fields as a function of pressure, temperature and composition by carrying out synthesis experiments. We have recently shown that inorganic anhydrous pyrocarbonate salts, containing C₂O₅-groups as their defining structural unit, are a new family of carbonates. In my talk, I will discuss the relevance, synthesis, structures and properties of this new class of compounds, and of novel sp³-carbonates, where the carbon is in tetrahedral coordination. 

Reference: Spahr et al. (2024), Ca₃[C₂O₅]₂[CO₃] is a pyrocarbonate which can be formed at p, T conditions prevalent in the Earth’s transition zone. Communications Chemistry 7:238

Bio: 

Bjoern Winkler is the head of the crystallography-mineralogy group at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. He received a diploma in Mineralogy/Crystallography from the Technical University of Berlin. He obtained his PhD in Mineral Physics in Cambridge (UK), and then worked as a post doc in the field of neutron scattering at the Center for nuclear studies in Saclay (France). Afterwards, he became an assistant professor in Kiel (Germany). Since 2002, he is full professor in Frankfurt. His main interest is understanding structure-property relations of crystalline materials. His group combines atomistic model calculations with state-of-the-art experiments (mostly laser-heated diamond anvil cell studies) to obtain and characterizenovel compounds at high pressures and temperatures.