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Students receive awards

Fie Noer Christensen — Tue, 22 Jul 2025 13:09:00 +0200

PhD students Daniel Vrønning Hoffmann and Therese Adam Møller were acknowledged with awards at two different conferences during the past weeks.

At the 15th International Isotope Society Symposium in Gothenburg, Sweden PhD student Daniel Vrønning Hoffmann was awarded the Journal of Labeled Compounds and Radiopharmaceuticals Young Scientist Award.

Therese Adam Møller attended the 23rd European Symposium on Organic Chemistry (ESOC2025) in Copenhagen with a poster. This poster was recognized as one of the top four posters by the committee of the conference.

Villum Investigator grant

Fie Noer Christensen — Thu, 08 May 2025 13:01:00 +0200

We are thrilled to announce that the Villum Foundation has granted Troels funding for important research on the recycling of epoxy composites and polyurethanes through a Villum Investigator grant of 30 million Dkr.

Troels is interviewed in C&EN

Fie Noer Christensen — Thu, 30 Jan 2025 13:00:00 +0100

In an article about mattress recycling, Chemical & Engineering news has interviewed Troels on polyurethane foam depolymerization.

It covers the groups work on tert-amyl alcohol-mediated depolymerization of PU foams.

Welcoming PhD student

Fie Noer Christensen — Tue, 28 Jan 2025 13:00:00 +0100

We welcome Anika Schick from AstraZeneca to the group, who will stay for a year. She will join isotope labeling to ongoing labeling projects in the group.

New visiting PhD student

Fie Noer Christensen — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 12:59:00 +0200

We are glad to announce the arrival of Marcelo Carvalho from Juiz de Fora University, who will be a visiting PhD student in the group for the next six months.

He will work on epoxy degradation and we hope for a fruitful stay.

3 new publications during the summer

Fie Noer Christensen — Fri, 30 Aug 2024 12:59:00 +0200

In late June, our work on chemical separation of polyurethane via acidolysis was accepted in Green Chemistry.

By early July, our work on the mechanism of catalytic C-O disconnection in polymers was accepted in Nature Communications.

Most recently, our work on Nickel-catalyzed carbonylative cross-couplings for isotope labeling was accepted in Angewandte Chemie in August.

Check all of our most recent publications out!

We have won 'Plastprisen 2024'

Lise Refstrup Linnebjerg Pedersen — Wed, 19 Jun 2024 12:53:00 +0200

Our group has been awarded Plastprisen for the second consecutive year. This prestigious award recognizes the innovative work in developing chemical technologies for the closed-loop recycling of polyurethane (PU) products. The groundbreaking research promises significant advancements in sustainable plastic recycling.

Perspective in ACS Org. Inorg. Au

Fie Noer Christensen — Mon, 13 May 2024 12:52:00 +0200

Abstract: In order to prevent the current unsustainable waste handling of the enormous volumes of end-of-use organic polymer material sent to landfilling or incineration, extensive research efforts have been devoted toward the development of appropriate solutions for the recycling of commercial thermoset polymers. The inability of such cross-linked polymers to be remelted once cured implies that mechanical recycling processes used for thermoplastic materials do not translate to the recycling of thermoset polymers. Moreover, the structural diversity within the materials from the use of different monomers as well as the use of such polymers for the fabrication of fiber-reinforced polymer composites make recycling of these materials highly challenging. In this Perspective, depolymerization strategies for thermoset polymers are discussed with an emphasis on recent advancements within our group on recovering polymer building blocks from polyurethane (PU) and epoxy-based materials. While these two represent the largest thermoset polymer groups with respect to the production volumes, the recycling landscapes for these classes of materials are vastly different. For PU, increased collaboration between academia and industry has resulted in major advancements within solvolysis, acidolysis, aminolysis, and split-phase glycolysis for polyol recovery, where several processes are being evaluated for further scaling studies. For epoxy-based materials, the molecular skeleton has no obvious target for chemical scission. Nevertheless, we have recently demonstrated the possibility of the disassembly of the epoxy polymer in fiber-reinforced composites for bisphenol A (BPA) recovery through catalytic CO bond cleavage. Furthermore, a base promoted cleavage developed by us and others shows tremendous potential for the recovery of BPA from epoxy polymers. Further efforts are still required for evaluating the suitability of such monomer recovery strategies for epoxy materials at an industrial scale. Nonetheless, recent advancements as illustrated with the presented chemistry suggest that the future of thermoset polymer recycling could include processes that emphasize monomer recovery in an energy efficient manner for closed-loop recycling.

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsorginorgau.4c00009

Publication in Nature Communications!

Fie Noer Christensen — Mon, 25 Mar 2024 12:48:00 +0100

Abstract: Carbon isotope labelling of bioactive molecules is essential for accessing the pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic properties of new drug entities. Aryl carboxylic acids represent an important class of structural motifs ubiquitous in pharmaceutically active molecules and are ideal targets for the installation of a radioactive tag employing isotopically labelled CO₂. However, direct isotope incorporation via the reported catalytic reductive carboxylation (CRC) of aryl electrophiles relies on excess CO₂, which is incompatible with carbon-14 isotope incorporation. Furthermore, the application of some CRC reactions for late-stage carboxylation is limited because of the low tolerance of molecular complexity by the catalysts. Herein, we report the development of a practical and affordable Pd-catalysed electrocarboxylation setup. This approach enables the use of near-stoichiometric ¹⁴CO₂ generated from the primary carbon-14 source Ba¹⁴CO₃, facilitating late-stage and single-step carbon-14 labelling of pharmaceuticals and representative precursors. The proposed isotope-labelling protocol holds significant promise for immediate impact on drug development programmes.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-46820-9

Publication in ChemElectroChem

Fie Noer Christensen — Tue, 20 Feb 2024 12:46:00 +0100

Abstract: The increasing concentration of CO₂ in the atmosphere and its impact on the climate are matters of significant concern. Extensive research is being conducted on molecular catalysts to electrochemically reduce CO₂ into valuable products to disrupt the unidirectional carbon flow. This study compares two manganese bipyridine catalysts, tailored with four or two benzylic diethylamine groups in the secondary coordination sphere. Either of these amine-bearing scaffolds positioned close to the Mn center serves as effective proton relays to facilitate the formation of the corresponding Mn hydride intermediate. Alongside competitive H₂ evolution, the reaction of this crucial intermediate with CO₂ leads to formate. Our findings underscore the pronounced influence of external Brønsted acids on product selectivity. Notably, when employing the catalyst bearing four amine groups, the HCOO/H₂ ratio varies from 81:3 with 1.0M iPrOH to 16:64 with 1.0M PhOH, while the Mn complex adorned with two amine pendant groups consistently favors HCOO, irrespective of the utilized proton sources. Infrared spectroelectrochemistry and density-functional theory calculations unveil distinct disparities in the reactivity of the Mn hydrides toward CO₂ due to the change of ligand bulkiness in the two cases. This work substantiates the importance of modulating spatial accessibility while modifying the second sphere encompassing molecular catalysts.

https://chemistry-europe.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/celc.202300553