Welcome to the
Bergens Research Group Webpage
**PLEASE NOTE: Website is currently under construction**
The central theme of our research is to study and develop catalytic systems. We study asymmetric catalysis towards the production of biologically active chiral molecules (e.g. Biotin and (+)-pilocarpine are objectives), and nanoparticle catalysis in hydrogen and alcohol fuel cells. Whenever possible, we collaborate with industrial, academic, and government laboratories to enhance the experience, knowledge, and capacity of the projects. More importantly, these collaborations provide a more expansive experience for graduate students, postdocs, and undergraduates. Our fundamental approach is to synthesize novel and well-defined homogeneous-, polymeric-, or nanoparticle-based catalysts, and then observe them in situ as they operate in the catalytic reaction or process. We then use this knowledge to develop new catalytic reactions and systems. The projects involve several disciplines. Organometallic chemistry is utilized and developed for catalyst design, study, and synthesis. Synthetic organic chemistry is utilized for ligand, substrate preparation, and for product transformation. Polymer chemistry is utilized to prepare and characterize polymeric catalyst-organic frameworks. Metal nanoparticles are prepared using in house developed syntheses and they are characterized by electrochemistry, TEM, SEM, XPS, BET, TGA, NAA, and a variety of other techniques. The electrocatalysts are evaluated by collaboration with other labs and in-house by constructing prototype fuel cells.
I invite you to visit these sections that interest you, and then contact me, or a member of the group, if you'd like to learn more about them. Thanks again for your interest.