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The EuChemS Chemistry Congress is a biannual chemistry conference bringing together chemists from academia, industry, and research institutions across Europe and beyond to share the latest advancements in the chemical sciences. The 9th edition, hosted in Dublin from the 7th to 11th July 2024, featured a diverse program of plenary lectures, symposia, workshops, and networking opportunities, aiming to foster collaboration and promote the role of chemistry in addressing global challenges.
In addition to a plenary lecture with the title ’Nucleophilic Additions: From simple (Felkin-Anh rule) to more complex (Grignard reaction)’ given by Odile Eisenstein, the Hylleraas Centre was represented by oral and poster presentations from five young researchers:
- Marco Bortoli gave an oral presentation with the title: ’Empowering Grignard reagents rational design with machine learning’.
- Henrique Musseli Cezar gave an oral presentation with the title: ’Metainference simulations to interpret small angle scattering experiments’ .
- Hannes Kneiding gave an oral presentation with the title: ’Directional evolutionary multiobjective optimization of metal complexes at the billion-scale’.
- Inga Schmidtke gave an oral presentation with the title: ’Ethylene hydrogenation via Rh(III)-dimers: a mechanistic study’.
- Jose Alberto Guerrero Cruz presented a poster with the title: ’Describing the Electronic Structure of Group-4 Metallocenes with 19F-NMR Chemical Shifts’ .
Eisenstein gave a plenary lecture on the history of the Grignard reaction and how the development of computational tools allowed to describe the complex reactivity of these reagents. Bortoli presented a study investigating the mechanisms underlying Grignard chemistry, using neural-network potentials trained in an active learning procedure. Cezar showed how Metainference combined with small-angle scattering data can be used to perform coarse-grained data-driven simulations to obtain the structural ensemble of micelles in solution. Kneiding presented research on the directional optimization of transition metal complexes using genetic algorithms and semi-empirical quantum chemistry calculations. Schmidtke presented work investigating the reactivity of the Rh(I)-monohydride complex toward ethylene in the presence of Barton’s base in a combined experimental and computational effort. Guerrero presented a combined experimental and computational study investigating the 19F-NMR chemical shift signature of a series of Group-4 metallocene difluorides possessing Cp2, Cp2*, and rac-(ebthi) ligands.
Link to the conference: https://euchems2024.org/ecc9-programme/