Demyan 🇺🇦 Prokopchuk ⌬
Assistant Professor at Rutgers-Newark. Mildly obsessed with ligand design. Opinions fueled by espresso. 🇨🇦 in the 🇺🇸 (with 🇺🇦 roots). Pronounced “Dem-yahn”
depchem.com
- Yesterday I had the honor to give an invited research seminar at Yale University - thanks to Nilay Hazari for hosting me! A huge highlight was spending time with THE Bob Crabtree after the seminar - a really kind, witty, yet towering figure in the organometallic chemistry community. 🧪☺️🥼
- A warm welcome to the two newest PhD students in the Prokopchuk group, Zhenhong and Chiranjit! 👋🏻 Young Padawans ready to learn the ways of the Schlenk and do some cool organometallic chemistry. 🧪
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- Congrats to Nini for passing her PhD candidacy exam! The lucky sweater pulled her through on some tricky C-H BDFE questions, and she’s now ready to devour some cake 🎂
- We have developed a metal-free electrocatalyst for rapidly and selectively generating hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂), a multi-ton commodity chemical. It operates through a novel H-atom transfer pathway to reduce O2. Read now on ChemRxiv! doi.org/10.26434/che...
- Great work by Sanju and Viani this week in sharing their results at Pacifichem! 🌺 While the weather this week was 💦, the science was 🔥
- The Prokopchuk group is representin’ at Pacifichem !! 🌺☀️ Check out Sanju’s talk this afternoon in the main group symposium, and Viani will present a poster on her Mn redox mediator chemistry on Friday evening. (Yours truly has 2 talks on Friday 🙂)
- Reposted by Demyan 🇺🇦 Prokopchuk ⌬Nucleophilic #Bismuth: diarylbismuth-anions grant access to bismuth-acyl compounds & visible-light-induced reversible insertion/extrusion of CO! Just out @natcomms.nature.com: link.springer.com/article/10.1.... Congrats to the team (including @felixgeist.bsky.social, @jordipoater.bsky.social)!
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- Had an awesome visit to the @upenn.edu chemistry department earlier this week. Thanks so much for hosting, Dan! (and for forgiving my lack of early TM chemistry in my talk 😆) 🧪🥼
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- It has been an honour and privilege to co-write this piece in honour of Bob! pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/ac… (Want to know how many papers Bob has in his self-curated digital reference library that he started in 1989? The answer will surprise you! Read the article to find out 😉)
- Thanks so much to Eric Piechota and @natsynth.nature.com for highlighting our work!
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- Isn’t it amazing that modern Macs/PCs are back compatible with “ancient” printers and scanners? My all-in-one inkjet printer/scanner/copier is almost 20 years old and still works beautifully. Totally bucks the “planned obsolescence” mantra in tech
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- One of my students needs to make a Ni(II) starting material, and if you aren’t aware, Luigi Venanzi has this awesome paper from 1958: dx.doi.org/10.1039/JR95...
- Thanks so much to @bribarbu.bsky.social and @cenmag.bsky.social for highlighting our recent work! 😊 @tkschramm.bsky.social @unibonn.bsky.social
- Why is Pd often "better" at C-H activation than Ni? Just published in JACS, we show that Pd acidifies C(sp3)-H bonds 100,000 times more than Ni. Our DFT collab with @tkschramm.bsky.social and Andreas Hansen @unibonn.bsky.social was crucial to explain acid-base rxns! pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...
- Seriously?
- Super busy summer for PhD defenses - Lirong Lin (holding the blue bottle of bubbly!) recently defended her thesis titled "Using Diamondoid Pincer Ligands and C(sp3)-H Activation Models at Group 10 Transition Metals." All very the very best in the next stages of your career! #ProudPI 🙂
- Reposted by Demyan 🇺🇦 Prokopchuk ⌬"PhD-level experts in your back pocket" is a completely nonsensical description of AI but a pretty good description of social media if you follow the right people
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- Really fun project with @grimmelab.bsky.social, esp. when DFT data agrees so well with expt (most values < 1 kcal/mol!). David discovered that N-H deprotonation leads to a new dimension in PCET thermochemistry with Cpᴺ³ molecules. Congrats all and thx to collaborators for validating Fe(II)!!
- Huge shout out to my brother in law Igor who just completed a monumental achievement: Ironman triathlon! He jumped straight from doing a couple triathlons a few years ago to training for the big kahuna. Was a very emotional race for him, and the fam is incredibly proud. ❤️
- The most New Jersey beer I’ve ever purchased. Brewed in Brick, NJ @gabagoolmarx.bsky.social
- Really proud of PhD #3, David Tresp . Not only is he a fine researcher, but he’s our de facto handyman. Glove boxes, pumps, crystallography, voltammetry, synthesis, and many more impressive talents under his belt. Congrats!!! 🥳
- Does anyone else have clothes from grade school that they still wear around the house? 😄
- Was a very special week, as I got to see PhD graduates #1 (Bhumika) and #2 (Ageliki) walk across the stage! #ProudPI
- As seen on my lab’s message board 🌹
- Reposted by Demyan 🇺🇦 Prokopchuk ⌬personally would like to see every store show what part of the price increase is due to tariffs bc if these tariffs ever come down, i need to see that price go right back down
- Congratulations, Dr. Karagiannis!!! 🎉 Ageliki is PhD #2 coming out of my lab, opening the doors to some amazing Mn chemistry. We gave her the Greek goddess treatment for the photo op. 👸🏻👑🥼🧪
- Looking for a place with stellar inorganic and organometallic chemistry at #ACSSpring2025 ? Come to the symposium in honor of Robert (Bob) Morris TODAY starting at 8:00 in Room 28B!
- Can confirm, it’s super easy to take apart without any tools. Plus, CR2032 batteries are probably useful in some other device you have in your home!
- A small contingent of my group will be at #ACSSpring2025 in San Diego! Please check out Sanju’s poster (Sun) and Lirong’s talk (Wed). I’ll be in the Bob Morris award symposium giving a talk (Tue).
- Had a fun seminar visit to York University, where I was able to catch up with Prof. Chris Caputo who I haven’t seen since grad school. Thanks for the invite, Chris! 🧪🤓
- Reposted by Demyan 🇺🇦 Prokopchuk ⌬Bluetorial-A dream and a bit of a nightmare Serving as Editor-in-Chief at Science was fascinating. I greatly enjoyed working with talented and committed editorial, news, graphics, and production staff. But the inside look into scientific publishing and AAAS was also deeply disillusioning.
- Had a wonderful visit to Columbia university today (@columbiauniversity.bsky.social). Humbled and honored to share my research with folks in the department. Thanks so much for the invite, Ged! 🤓🧪🥼
