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Bureau: Pavillon A.-Vachon, 1459
Téléphone: 418-656-7867
Télécopieur: 418-656-7916
Courriel: peter.mcbreen@chm.ulaval.ca
Membre régulier du CCVC
B.Sc. University College Dublin, Ireland (1971-75)
Ph.D. University of Toronto, Canada (1976-1981)
Post-doc. Surface Science Institute (IGV), Julich, Germany (1981-83)
Materials Science Department, University of Ben Gurion, Israel (1984-85)
We use surface spectroscopy and scanning tunneling microscopy to study the chemical reactivity of catalytic surfaces. Our research strives to provide a basic understanding of surface reactions at the molecular level, provides new chemical method to manipulate nanostructures and delves into the junction of organometallic and heterogeneous catalysis.
Our current research deals with the following subjects :
Research Activities
Controlling surface chemical reaction selectivity:
Surfaces form reactive environments because they have weak coordination numbers. This further complicates the creation of surfaces with selective reactivity. Part of our research explores the idea to orient a particular enantioface of a certain prochiral group towards the catalyst’s surface. The following links provide a few examples of our work in chiral catalysis:
Another challenge lies in selectively forming a specific type of chemical bond with a surface. In particular, it is extremely laborious to form a double bound with a single atom on the surface. This problem arises because surfaces present a network of neighbouring sites, which allow simultaneous bounds with several surface atoms. We previously showed a method to form double bound with a molybdenum carbide surface and established that surface alkyliden group (Mo=CR1R2) are active for olefin metathesis. Olefin metathesis is a beautiful and powerful synthetic method, as acknowledged by the 2005 Nobel Prize for Chemistry awarded to Grubbs, Shrock and Chauvin. The following link gives few examples of our studies:
Selective intramolecular chemistry can be used to prepare molecularly determined patterns on surfaces. This field of research is named bi-dimensional self-assembly. For our research, we use scanning tunneling microscopy, an extremely powerful technique to study how molecules are linked together on the surface at a submolecular level.
‘’I was like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.’’
-Isaac Newton
Representative publications