Speaker biography

Invited Speaker: Bruno Chaudret

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Bruno Chaudret

Directeur de recherches C.N.R.S.
Member of "Académie des Sciences"

Laboratoire de Chimie de Coordination C.N.R.S.
205 Route de Narbonne 31077 Toulouse France
Tel: (33) 05 61 33 31 81.
Fax: (33) 05 61 55 30 03.
chaudret@lcc-toulouse.fr

Studies

  • 1975 – Ingénieur Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Paris                                              
  • 1977 – Ph.D. Imperial College, London (Dir. thesis, G. Wilkinson)      
  • 1979 – Doctorat d'Etat U.P.S.Toulouse (Dir. thesis, R. Poilblanc)   

Work Experience

  • C.N.R.S.-Royal Society Fellowship, London – 1975-1977
  • Attaché de Recherches C.N.R.S., Toulouse – 1977-1981
  • Chargé de Recherches C.N.R.S., Toulouse – 1981-1988
  • Directeur de Recherches C.N.R.S., Toulouse: - 2nd Class – 1988-1998
    - 1st  Class – 1998-

Distinctions

  • "Chimie de Coordination" Award of "Société Chimique de France" 1982.   
  • Médaille d'Argent (Silver Medal) CNRS, 1997.
  • 1st Price 18éme Concours Régional Innovation Midi-Pyrénées (1998)
  • Miguel Catalan - Paul Sabatier Award of "Real Sociedad Espanola de Quimica" / "Société Française de Chimie" 1999
  • Elected at "Académie des Sciences" (november 2005)
  • Humboldt - Gay-Lussac Award 2006
  • Geoffrey Wilkinson Prize and Lectureship, Royal Society of Chemistry 2008
  • Seaborg Lecturer, University of California Berkeley 2002
  • EastChem visiting Professor (Saint-Andrews, Edinburgh) July 2006
  • Editorial Board member (past or present) of : New Journal of Chemistry ; Journal of the Chemical Society, Dalton Transactions; Organometallics; VCH-Small, Journal of Organometallic Chemistry, Journal of Material Chemistry.

Main Functions

  • Directeur de Recherche CNRS since 1988
  • Director of the Laboratoire de Chimie de Coordination C.N.R.S. 2007 –
  • President of the Scientific Council of the "Institut Français du Pétrole" since 2006.
  • Deputy-Director of the Laboratoire de Chimie de Coordination C.N.R.S. 2000-2006]
  • Director of graduate studies in Inorganic Chemistry at  Université Paul Sabatier  Toulouse ("DEA Chimie et Physicochimie des éléments de transition") 1998- 2004.
  • Member of "Comité National de la Recherche Scientifique" (1987-1991, 1994-1995, 2001-2005)
  • Member of Regional Scientific Councils (2001 - 2006)=
  • Director of a research group (presently: "Nanostructures and Organometallic Chemistry) composed in average of  20 people among which 7 permanent positions.

Scientific Production

  • Co-author of over 300 publications in refereed journals
  • 13 patents (7 international extensions), 1 licence giving rise to industrial production.
  • 51 invited lectures in international conferences, 39 in national conferences and 126 in universities and research centers.

Scientific Training

  • 29 PhD students + 7 "co-tutelle" theses with Berlin, Essen, Amsterdam, Caracas, …
  • 25 Post-Doc fellows
  • ca 50 undergraduate students and short stays of various origins

Short biography

Bruno Chaudret, graduated from École Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Paris in 1975. He received his Ph.D. from Imperial College London in 1977 with Sir Geoffrey Wilkinson and the degree of a "Docteur ès Sciences" at the University of Toulouse in 1979. He is now “Director of Research CNRS”, Director of the "Laboratoire de Chimie de Coordination CNRS" in Toulouse and a member of the French Academy of Science.

He developed in the early 80s the synthesis of hydride and dihydrogen complexes and investigated by NMR their exchange processes which follow classical or quantum-mechanical pathways. These studies have been extended to the coordination of other simple groups such as C-H and Si-H, and led to a creative chemistry as well as to new catalytic processes.

In the early 90s, Bruno Chaudret developed an organometallic method for the synthesis of metal or metal oxide nanoparticles. The mild conditions used allowed the control of the particle size and size distribution together with that of the surface species present on the nanoparticles (hydrides, organic or inorganic molecules). These particles exhibit physical properties, in particular magnetic properties, similar to those studied using high-vacuum methods. According to the reaction conditions, the particles adopt precise shapes (spheres, cubes, rods, wires, urchins, fractal structures) and may assemble into two- or three-dimensional super-crystals in which the particles diameters can vary between 1 and 15 nm. These new nano-objects display interesting properties in various domains such as catalysis (enantioselective), magnetism, optics, micro- and nanoelectronics. The most promising applications are presently found in devices for micro-electronics among which gas sensors have lead to a practical industrial applications.