Associate Professor Graham C Saunders
Associate Professor
Qualifications: B.A.(Hons) Oxon, D.Phil Oxon
Personal Website: http://sci.waikato.ac.nz/about-us/people/gsaunder
Research Interests
Research is directed towards using the properties of the carbon―fluorine bond in organometallic chemistry and for highly repellant surfaces.
- Organometallic Chemistry
- The extreme strength and the electronic and steric properties of the C―F bond are used to confer useful properties on organometallic complexes, in particular catalytic activity.
- C―F bond fission is used to synthesize organometallic complexes, not accessible by other routes.
- Superhydrophobic Surfaces
- The extreme water repellancy of perfluoroalkyl groups is used to confer superhydrophobicity on metal surfaces. The work has been highlighted by Nature and Scientific American. The simple fabrication technique allows a range of unusual phenomena to be investigated, such as the Cheerios Effect and 'super-buoyancy', which allows boats to be constructed of metal mesh, and has potential industrial importance.
Research Supervised
PhD
- Thomas, Hayden (submitted). Synthesis and reactivity of iridium(III) and rhodium (III) piano-stool complexes of NHC ligands bearing fluorinated substituents.
- Bandaru, Sravan (in progress). Synthesis and applications of metal complexes of carbohydrate and fluoroaryl substituted N-heterocyclic carbenes.
- Acharige, Udari (in progress). Crystal Engineering via Imidazolium Salts.
- Sain, Prithwish (in progress). Crystal Engineering by Arene-polyfluoroarene π-π stacking.
MSc
- Pachal, Sam (2012). Superhydrophobic titanium and titanium dioxide.
- Hanan Althagbi (2013). Perfluoroaryl heterocycles for crystl engineering.
BSc (Hons)
- Thomas, Hayden (2015). Synthesis and characterisation of mecury and rhodium NHC complexes containing polyfluoroaryl substituents.
- Schroder, Ivan (2012). Synthesis of dicyandiamide derivatives for agricultural applications.
Teaching Commitments
Expertise
Chemistry; Science; X-Ray
Recent Publications
Kaewthong, A., Saunders, G. C., & Henderson, W. (2022). The thiosulfate (S2O32−) ion; a neglected but simple hetero-donor ligand towards platinum(II), palladium(II) and nickel(II). Inorganica Chimica Acta, 534. doi:10.1016/j.ica.2022.120808
Morgan, P. J., Saunders, G. C., Macgregor, S. A., Marr, A. C., & Licence, P. (2022). Nucleophilic fluorination catalyzed by a cyclometallated rhodium complex. Organometallics. doi:10.1021/acs.organomet.2c00052
Risi, M. C., Saunders, G. C., & Henderson, W. (2021). The coordination chemistry of sulfonyl-substituted thioureas towards the d8 metal centres platinum(II), palladium(II), nickel(II) and gold(III). Inorganica Chimica Acta, 526. doi:10.1016/j.ica.2021.120506
Bandaru, S. K., Thomas, H. P., & Saunders, G. C. (2020). Piano stool complexes of N-heterocyclic carbene ligands bearing a galactose-derived substituent. Inorganica Chimica Acta, 508. doi:10.1016/j.ica.2020.119651