Chemistry is a diverse discipline, involving substances in every aspect of life – what we see, eat, smell, touch, and taste every day. With an equal emphasis on theory and practical work, Waterloo's chemistry undergraduate and graduate programs prepare you for a growing number of dynamic career options. You could be searching for the roots of crippling diseases, developing cancer-fighting drugs, or assessing environmental damage.
Some of the specialized topics being investigated by UW Chemistry Faculty can be found in the following classical research areas below.
Analytical Chemistry
- Carbon nanotube based transdermal drug delivery systems
- Comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography – development and applications
- Development and applications of Solid-Phase Micro-Extraction (SPME) technology for in-vitro and in-vivo analysis
- Clinical and pharmaceutical applications of SPME
- Non-lethal in-vivo SPME monitoring of biologically significant compounds and environmental contaminants in live tissues
- Advances in multidimensional chromatography
- Advanced separations techniques in the analysis of environmental pollutants
- Passive air sampling in environmental analysis
- DNA-aptamer based biosensors for detection in biological fluids
- Electroanalytical chemistry, bioanalytical chemistry and in vitro toxicology assays
- Micro- and nano-samples by Inductively Coupled Plasma (ICP) atomic emission and ICP-Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS)
- Green chromatography
- Battery-operated micro-plasmas on-chips
- Direct coupling of SPME to Mass Spectrometry (MS) for rapid complex sample determinations
- Development of new formats of extraction phases and devices
- Investigation of fundamental process in extraction
Biological Chemistry or Biochemistry
- Particle-displayed DNA for aptamer selection and aptamer-based detection
- Structure and function investigations of nitric oxide synthase and calmodulin
- Mechanisms of protein aggregation
- Protein engineering and design
- Developing novel methods for combinatorial selection of aptamers
- Design, synthesis, and enzymology of novel enzyme inhibitors
- Study of enzymes important in microorganisms and potential for drug design
- Protein structure and function
- Bionanotechnology-application of proteins and enzymes to nanotechnology
- Structure and function of membrane-damaging toxins and antibiotics
- Nucleic acid structure and function
- Biomolecular Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) Spectroscopy
- RNA as drug and drug target
Inorganic Chemistry
- Solid state chemistry of energy storage materials: synthesis and properties
- Intermetallics for Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) fuel cell catalysis
- Solid state nitrites
- Supercapacitors and pseudocapacitor materials
- Solid state chemistry of lithium ion batteries
- Heavy atom radicals as multifunctional magnetic and conductive materials
- Solid state chemistry: advanced thermoelectric materials
- Solid state chemistry: nonconventional polyselenides and polytellurides
- Synthetic bioinorganic chemistry
- Nitrogenase-inspired iron cluster chemistry
- Reactivity studies of divalent titanium
- Synthesis and self-assembly of organometallic monomers
Nanotechnology
- Nanofluidics in carbon nanotubes
- Designing carbon nanotubes to overcome bio-barriers
- Hybrid nanostructured materials: correlation of structure, transport, and electrochemical properties of alkali transition metal phosphates
- Designing carbon nanotubes and mesoporous carbons for energy storage
- DNA directed assembly of soft and hard nanomaterials for sensing and drug delivery
- Synthesis and assembly of nano-materials
- Integrative chemistry for nanomaterials
- Complex inorganic nanostructures
- Nanomaterials and nanodevices for diology and medicine
- Health and environmental effects of engineered nanomaterials
- Cell-nanomaterial interaction based devices and electronic sensors
- Ion based self-assembly of nanoparticles and devices
- Design and synthesis of supramolecular functional nanomaterials
Organic Chemistry
- Asymmetric conjugate additions
- Synthesis and evaluation of b-lactamase inhibitors
- New methods for sulfation of steroids and carbohydrates
- Development of new methods for asymmetric synthesis
- Stereocontrolled synthesis of biologically-relevant molecules
- Ligand-catalyzed asymmetric transformations
- Design of organometallic reagents for asymmetric carbon-carbon bond forming process
Physical Chemistry
- Nanofluidics in carbon nanotubes
- Multifunctional complex oxide nano structures
- Supercapacitors and pseudocapacitor materials
- Solid state electrochemistry of energy storage and conversion materials
- High resolution magic angle spinning NMR of polymer-supported peptides
- NMR studies of prionlike peptide structures
- Biological metal sites as studied by solid-state NMR spectroscopy
- Solid-state implementations for Quantum Information Processing (QIP)
- In liquid electron microscopy
- High resolution structure and structural dynamics
- Time-resolved characterization of two dimensional quantum materials
Polymer Chemistry
- Synthesis of branched polymers using click chemistry
- Characterization of "(AspxPhey)n" polypeptide aggregates and their potential for drug delivery applications
- Polymer-stabilized metallic nanoparticle catalysts
- Arborescent polymers based on amino acids
- Microencapsulation by amphiphilic polymers for drug delivery
- Physical characterization of branched polymers (rheology, solution viscosity, light scattering, etc.)
- Synthesis and characterization of ionomers
- Organometallic polymer synthesis and self-assembly
Theoretical Chemistry
- Internally contracted multireference coupled cluster method and normal-order-based automatic code generator
- Advances in the density matrix renormalization group method for use in quantum chemistry (spin adaptation, two-body density matrix evaluation, orbital optimization)
- Development and application of improved models for intermolecular potential energy functions
- Dynamical studies of Van der Waals cluster solvation and their spectroscopic signatures
- Path integral simulations of quantum fluids
- Simulations of doped helium nano-droplets