McGrady UNB - Inorganic Chemistry Home

Welcome to the Homepage of Dr. Sean McGrady

This is the main portal to our group's research activities in the Department of Chemistry at the University of New Brunswick, which can be summarized under the headings.

Poster/presentation of the week

Hetero-Polyaromatic Ring-Opening Reactions in scCO₂, Gregory C. Curtis, Sarah A. Brough, Crystal L. Allen, Christopher D. Willson, and G. Sean McGrady, France 2009

Inorganic Synthesis, Structure and Reactivity

Elucidation of the bonding in Mn(2-SiH) complexes by charge density analysis and T1 NMR measurements: asymmetric oxidative addition and anomeric effects at silicon, Wolfgang Scherer, Georg Eickerling, Maxim Tafipolsky, G. Sean McGrady, Peter Sirsch and Nicholas P. Chatterton, Chem. Commun., 2006, 2986 - 2988, DOI: 10.1039/b604843a

Fig. 1 Molecular structure of 1 (left, 295 K, neutron diffraction study) and 2 (right, 120 K, high-resolution X-ray study; ADP were adopted to the neutron diffraction model of ref. 5) at the 50% probability level. Only the relevant hydrogen atoms are shown.

Hypervalent hydridosilicates: synthesis, structure and hydride bridging, Paul D. Prince, Michael J. Bearpark, G. Sean McGrady and Jonathan W. Steed, Dalton Trans., 2008, 271 - 282, DOI: 10.1039/b713427d

Fig. 1 Single-crystal X-ray structure of the trigonal () form of 1 showing the Si–HK interaction as a dotted line. All C–H hydrogen atoms have been omitted for clarity. Selected interatomic distances (Å): K(1)–O(1) 2.794(2), K(1)–O(2) 2.799(2), Si(1)–C(3) 1.938(3), Si(1)–H(1S) 1.60, Si(1)–H(2S) 1.50, Si(1)–K(1) 4.32, K(1)–H(2) 2.82.

Ruthenium trihydrides with N-heterocyclic carbene ligands: effects on quantum mechanical exchange coupling, Aled L. Jones, G. Sean McGrady, Peter Sirsch and Jonathan W. Steed, Chem. Commun., 2005, 5994 - 5996, DOI: 10.1039/b512760b

Fig. 3 Molecular representation of the ground state of 1 and its transition state (shown inset). All hydrogen atoms except those directly attached to the metal are omitted for clarity.

and

Hydrogen Storage Materials

Further details can be found in the "Research" section.

Facile Cycling of Ti-Doped LiAlH₄ for High Performance Hydrogen Storage, Xiangfeng Liu, G. Sean McGrady, Henrietta W. Langmi and Craig M. Jensen, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2009, 131 (14), pp 5032–5033, DOI: 10.1021/ja809917g

Figure 1. XRD patterns of LiAlH₄ samples: (a) ICDD reference plot; (b) ball-milled (2.0 mol % TiCl₃); (c) fully dehydrogenated (0.2 mol % TiCl₃); (d) rehydrogenated (2.0 mol % TiCl₃); (e) rehydrogenated (0.2 mol % TiCl₃)

In situ thermal desorption of H₂ from LiNH₂–2LiH monitored by environmental SEM, Shane D. Beattie, Henrietta W. Langmi and G. Sean McGrady, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, Volume 34, Issue 1, January 2009, Pages 376-379, doi:10.1016/j.ijhydene.2008.10.062

Fig. 1. ESEM images chronicling morphological and structural changes in LiNH₂–2LiH as the temperature is increased and H₂ desorbs

Click here to download the ESEM insitu decomposition of LiNH₂+2LiH movie (13 MB .wmv format) or here for the lower quality mp4 format (xvid mp4). The movie is sped up by a factor of 16X for convenient viewing. The temperature of the sample is indicated on the status bar at the bottom of the screen. Or watch the Flash version here.

Note that you need to download and install the xvid codec to play the mp4 movies. Or, download the free video player VLC with the codec already installed. The .wmv version is in Windows Media Video format.

The movie has been edited for convenient viewing. The full, unedited movie can be downloaded here (.wmv, 258 MB, 31 min). For those interested, additional unedited movies can be downloaded here (.wmv, 205 MB, 24 min), here (.wmv, 94 MB, 11 min), and here (.wmv, 122 MB, 16 min) (right click the links and choose 'Save link as' to save movies to your hard drive).

Ternary nitrides for hydrogen storage: Li–B–N, Li–Al–N and Li–Ga–N systems, Henrietta W. Langmia and G. Sean McGrady, Journal of Alloys and Compounds, Volume 466, Issues 1-2, 20 October 2008, Pages 287-292, doi:10.1016/j.jallcom.2007.11.043

Fig. 2. XRD patterns for Li–Al–N milled for 18 and 48 h. The XRD patterns for the starting materials Li₃N and AlN are also shown.

The other Sections introduce the group members, provide details about our research, the Hydrogen Research lab (HRLab), recent news, contact details and other useful information.


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