Antoni Llobet

Antoni Llobet (* 1960 in Sabadell ) is a Spanish chemist who works with artificial photosynthesis .

Antoni Llobet received his PhD in 1985 from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) with Francesc Teixidor. As a post-doctoral student , he worked with Thomas J. Meyer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill until 1987 . He was at the University of Sussex-Dow Corning and was employed by the EU Commission in 1990/91. In 1992 he went to Texas A&M University (with Arthur E. Martell and Donald T. Sawyer) and from 1993 he was at the Universitat de Girona , with a full professorship from 2000. From 2004 he was a professor at the UAB. In addition, from 2006 he was group leader at the Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (ICIQ) in Tarragona .

He develops catalyst complexes with transition metals that are specially tailored to specific reactions, for example for the activation of CH and CF compounds and water splitting. He made the most effective catalysts for water splitting using ruthenium and also succeeded in arranging them in electrochemical cells. He also prepared low molecular weight complexes as models of the active sites of oxidative acting metal proteins.

In 2000 he received a Young Scientist Prize from the Government of Catalonia and in 2011 the Bruker Prize for Inorganic Chemistry from the Royal Spanish Society for Chemistry. In 2012 he gave the Hermanos Elhuyar- Hans Goldschmidt lecture of the Spanish and German Chemical Society.

In 2019 he received a Humboldt Research Award at the University of Würzburg with Frank Würthner .

Fonts (selection)

• with X. Ribas et al. a .: Aryl CH Activation by CuII To Form an Organometallic Aryl – CuIII Species: A Novel Twist on Copper Disproportionation, Angewandte Chemie International Edition, Volume 41, 2002, pp. 2991-2994
• with C. Sens u. a .: A new Ru complex capable of catalytically oxidizing water to molecular dioxygen, Journal of the American Chemical Society, Volume 126, 2004, pp. 7798-7799
• with F. Bozoglian a. a .: The Ru− Hbpp water oxidation catalyst, Journal of the American Chemical Society, Volume 131, 2009, pp. 15176-15187
• with X. Sala u. a .: Molecular catalysts that oxidize water to dioxygen, Angewandte Chemie International Edition, Volume 48, 2009, pp. 2842-2852
• with S. Romain, L. Vigara: Oxygen - oxygen bond formation pathways promoted by ruthenium complexes, Accounts of Chemical Research, Volume 42, 2009, pp. 1944–1953
• with L. Duan u. a .: A molecular ruthenium catalyst with water-oxidation activity comparable to that of photosystem II, Nature Chemistry, Volume 4, 2012, p. 418
• with X. Sala u. a .: Molecular water oxidation mechanisms followed by transition metals: state of the art, Accounts of Chemical Research, Volume 47, 2013, pp. 504-516
• with S. Berardi a. a .: Molecular artificial photosynthesis, Chemical Society Reviews, Volume 43, 2014, pp. 7501-7519
• with C. Gimbert-Surinach a. a .: Structural and Spectroscopic Characterization of Reaction Intermediates Involved in a Dinuclear Co-Hbpp Water Oxidation Catalyst, J. Am. Chem. Soc., Volume 138, 2016, pp. 15291-15294.
• with Jordi Creus u. a .: A Million Turnover Molecular Anode for Catalytic Water Oxidation, Angewandte Chemie Int. Edition, Volume 55, 2016, pp. 15382–15386.
• with D. Moonshiram u. a .: Tracking the structural and electronic configurations of a cobalt proton reduction catalyst in water, J. Am. Chem. Soc., Volume 138, 2016, pp. 10586-10596.
• with P. Garrido-Barros a. a .: Electronic π-delocalization Boosts Catalytic Water Oxidation by Cu (II) Molecular Catalysts Heterogenized on Graphene Sheets, J. Am. Chem. Soc., Volume 139, 2017, pp. 12907-12910.
• with R. Matheu u. a .: Photoelectrochemical behavior of a molecular Ru-based water-oxidation catalyst bound to TiO2-protected Si photoanodes, J. Am. Chem. Soc., Volume 139, 2017, pp. 11345-11348

Web links

• Homepage

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Expert in artificial photosynthesis , press release University of Würzburg, February 2019 (Humboldt Research Prize for Llobet)