Birthplace Limassol, Cyprus

Citizenship USA and UK

Contact

Department of Chemistry

University of Florida

Gainesville, Florida 32611-7200

Phone: (352) 392-8314

Fax: (352) 392-8757

Email: christou@chem.ufl.edu

 

Education

1981-82 NATO Postdoctoral Fellow, Chemistry Dept, Harvard University, USA

1980 NATO Postdoctoral Fellow, Chemistry Dept, Stanford University, USA

1978-79 Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Chemistry, Manchester University, UK

1974-77 PhD in Organic Chemistry, Exeter University, UK

1971-74 BSc (hons) in Chemistry, Exeter University, UK

 

Positions Held

2011- University Distinguished Professor, University of Florida, USA

2001- Drago Professor of Chemistry, University of Florida, USA

1998-01 Earl Blough Professor, Indiana University, USA

1991-98 Professor of Chemistry, Indiana University, USA

1989-91 Associate Professor of Chemistry, Indiana University, USA

1983-89 Assistant Professor of Chemistry, Indiana University, USA

1982-83 Lecturer and SRC Advanced Fellow, Chemistry Dept, Imperial College, London, UK

 

Areas of Professional Interest

Synthetic inorganic chemistry and its applications to areas such as molecular magnetism, molecular nanoparticles, supramolecular chemistry, and bioinorganic chemistry; transition metal and lanthanide cluster chemistry; molecular metal oxide nanoscience; physical inorganic chemistry; magnetochemistry; molecular magnetism; single-molecule magnets; supramolecular chemistry; synthetic models of the photosynthetic water oxidizing complex; water oxidation electrocatalysis using high oxidation state Mn and Mn/Ca carboxylate clusters. See https://christou.chem.ufl.edu

 

Memberships

Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC), UK

Fellow of the American Chemical Society

 

External Service

  • American Chemical Society Symposium Nominations Committee, 1989-91

  • NSF Committee visiting South Korean Universities and Institutions, 1992

  • Editor for the Americas, and Special Issues Editor, of Polyhedron (1998 - present)

  • Editorial Advisory Boards: Inorganic Chemistry (1996-8); Chemtracts (1997-2001); Chemical Society Reviews (2004-10); Dalton Transactions (2008-present); Inorganic Chemistry (2008-10)

  • Scientific Advisory Panel on Nanoscience to the Supreme Court of Canada, 2006

  • Research Consultant, University of Cyprus Chemistry Department, 2006 – present

  • International Advisory Committee, International Conference of Molecule-based Magnetism, 2010-present

  • Chair, Selection Committee, Florida Award of the ACS southeast region, 2010- present.

  • National Scientific Funding Agency, Chemistry and Materials Panel, Ministry of Education, Greece, 2011

  • Paper and proposal refereeing for various chemistry journals and USA, UK, and EU funding agencies

Publications, Citations and Hirsch (h) Index (as of Jan 1, 2022)

h-index = 97 (WoS) 615 peer-reviewed papers in journals and books. https://christou.chem.ufl.edu/publications Total citations (excl. self-citations): 34,198 (as of Jan 1, 2022); average citations per paper: 43.3. Selected to the Highly Cited Researchers 2014 and 2015 lists

Awards and Honors

1986 Corday-Morgan Medal and Prize, Royal Society of Chemistry, UK

1987 Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow

1987 Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation Teacher-Scholar Fellowship

1990 Visiting Professor, Oxford University, UK

  1. Wilsmore Foundation Fellow, University of Melbourne, Australia

  1. XXV Dwyer Medal and Memorial Lectureship, Australian Chemical Society

  1. European Community Lectureship, University of Ioannina, Greece

  1. William Evans Fellowship, University of Otago, New Zealand

  1. Akron Award, American Chemical Society

1998 NSF Award for Special Creativity

2000 Teaching Excellence Recognition Award, Indiana University

2000 Invited Professor, Pierre et Marie Curie Université, France

2000 Award for Chemistry and Electrochemistry of Transition Metals, Royal Society of Chemistry, UK

2002– Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC), UK

2003-08 Associate Member, Pacific Institute of Theoretical Physics, Vancouver, Canada

2006 Scientific Advisory Panel on Nanoscience to the Supreme Court of Canada

2006 NSF Award for Special Creativity

2007– Honorary Professor, University College London and London Centre for Nanotechnology, UK

2008 American Chemical Society Florida Award of the Southeastern USA Region

2008-11 University of Florida, Research Professorship Award

2009-12 University of Florida, Faculty Senator

2011– University Distinguished Professor

2014 Castle Plenary Lecture, University of South Florida

2014-15 Distinguished Adjunct Professor, King Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia

2014 Honorary Doctorate, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus

2014 Selection to the Thompson-Reuters Highly Cited Researchers 2014 List for Chemistry

2015 Doctoral Advisor-Mentor Award, UF College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

2015 Selection to the Thompson-Reuters Highly Cited Researchers 2015 List for Chemistry

2016 Inducted into the Academy of Distinguished Teaching Scholars, University of Florida

2016 Teacher-Scholar of the Year Award, the University of Florida’s highest honor

2016– Elected Fellow of the American Chemical Society (ACSF)

2016 Nyholm Prize for Inorganic Chemistry, Royal Society of Chemistry, UK

2016 ACS Southern Chemist Award, American Chemical Society

2019 ACS Award for Inorganic Chemistry, American Chemical Society

2021 Leadership Mentor Award of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (NHMFL)

 

 

Conference and Workshop Organization

  • Co-organizer, Inorganic Modeling of HDS, HDN and HDM Petroleum Chemistry Joint Symposium, ACS Divisions of Inorganic Chemistry and Petroleum Chemistry; Boston National ACS Meeting, April 1990

  • Founder and Organizer, Florida Inorganic and Materials Symposium (FIMS) Annual Meetings in Gainesville of 14 Florida Universities and Colleges (2003 - present)

  • Co-founder and co-organizer, North America-Greece-Cyprus Workshop on Paramagnetic Materials (NAGC), Nicosia 2005, Syros 2007, Patras 2011, Larnaca 2013, Athens 2015, Paphos 2017, Sparta 2018.

  • Co-founder and co-organizer, Current Trends in Molecular and Nanoscale Magnetism (CTMNM), Santorini 2006, Delphi 2008, Orlando 2010, Chalkidiki 2012, Larnaca 2014, Pylos 2016, Rhodes 2019.

  • Co-organizer, Functional Molecule-Based Magnets Symposium of the Pacifichem Congress of Pacific Rim Countries, Waikiki, Hawaii, December 2010

  • Organizing committee, 2012 International Conference on Molecule-based Magnetism, Orlando, FL, USA

  • Founder and Organizer, Showcase Symposium, Annual Meeting of the ACS Florida Section, 2013 - present

  • Founder and Organizer, Molecular Magnetism in North America (MAGNA) annual workshop, 2019 - present

Lecture 5: George Christou

Molecular Nanoparticles: A Molecular Route to Ultra-small
Nanoparticles of Important Metal Oxides


George Christou
Department of Chemistry, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611, USA
Email: christou@chem.ufl.edu


Synthesis of truly monodisperse (single size) nanoparticles and their structural characterization to atomic resolution are extremely important challenges in nanoscience. For many nanoscale materials important to next-generation electronic, magnetic, catalytic, and biomedical systems/devices, the ‘top-down’ approach is reaching its limits as the fabrication of monodisperse nanoparticles becomes more and more difficult with decreasing size. The bottom-up molecular approach to ultra-small (<10 nm) nanoparticles promises a powerful alternative route if high nuclearity clusters that have the same structure as the bulk material can be synthesized. Such ‘molecular nanoparticles’ (MNPs) would bring the many powerful advantages of molecular chemistry to this area of nanoscience, particularly true monodispersity, solubility, and crystallinity, the latter allowing structural characterization to atomic resolution by single-crystal X-ray crystallography, including the monolayer shell of organic ligands, which is extremely difficult to characterize for traditional nanoparticles.
 Cerium dioxide nanoparticles (CNPs, nanoceria) are widely used in catalysis, mechanical polishing, solid-oxide fuel cells, UV-shielding, and other applications. We thus began our MNP project with this metal and after some preliminary investigation developed procedures to the desired compounds [1]. These are molecular Ce/O clusters with primarily carboxylate ligands, and since their Ce/O core has the same fluorite structure as bulk CeO2, they can accurately be described as MNPs of this metal oxide. The Ce40 MNP of 1.6 nm size is shown in the Figure, including a view showing the surface facets from the low-index faces of CeO2, the
(100), (110) and (111). Since the initial breakthrough, a family of Ce MNPs has been obtained and characterized, including their ability to catalytically scavenge hydroxyl (HO•) radicals [2].
The MNP approach has also been extended to other metal oxides, and mixed-metal oxides.


Figure. Structure of the Ce40 MNP of CeO2: (left) the complete structure with H atoms omitted for clarity; (right) the Ce/O core showing the surface facets. Atom sizes of C, N, and O are made small to emphasize Ce locations. Color code: Ce4+ gold, Ce3+ sky blue, O red, OH- purple, N blue, C grey. Facets: (100) blue; (110) violet; (111) green.


[1] Mitchell, K. J.; Abboud, K. A.; Christou, G. Atomically precise colloidal nanoparticles of cerium dioxide. Nature Commun. 2017, 8, 1445.
[2] Expansion of the Family of Molecular Nanoparticles of Cerium Dioxide, and their Catalytic Scavenging of Hydroxyl Radicals. Mitchell, K. J.; Goodsell, J.; Russell-Webster, B.; Twahir, U.; Angerhofer, A.; Abboud, K. A.; Christou, G., Inorg. Chem., 2021, 60, 1641.