Events

Date: 16 October 2024   Time: 14:00 - 15:00

Location: G. O. Jones LT

Mechanistic insights from unpaired electrons: from membrane proteins to electrocatalysis

Maxie M. Rößler

Department of Chemistry and Centre for Pulse EPR Spectroscopy, Imperial College London, Molecular Sciences Research Hub, London W12 0BZ, m.roessler@imperial.ac.uk, www.imperial.ac.uk/roessler-lab, www.imperial.ac.uk/pulse-epr-facility/

Unpaired electrons play an important role in numerous redox-driven catalytic processes. Controlling their location and exploiting the interactions with their environment can provide key mechanistic information into these catalytic reactions. In this talk I will discuss how we are exploiting and developing EPR-based techniques in conjunction with biochemistry, electrochemistry and materials chemistry to gain mechanistic insights into metalloenzymes1 and electrocatalysts2.

I will discuss some insights that EPR has brought to understanding how complex membrane proteins, respiratory complex I3 and its homologue in photosynthesis4, function. I will then introduce film-electrochemical EPR spectroscopy (FE‑EPR)5 as a new tool to investigate surface-bound molecular catalysts. With in situ and operando FE-EPR we can monitor the evolution of radicals during catalysis in real time, providing a novel way to benchmark such electrocatalysts.2 Our current work is focussed on extending FE‑EPR to metalloenzymes.6

1 K. H. Richardson, M. Seif-Eddine, A. Sills and M. M. Roessler, Methods Enzymol, 2022, 666, 233–296.

2 M. Seif-Eddine, S. J. Cobb, Y. Dang, K. Abdiaziz, M. A. Bajada, E. Reisner and M. M. Roessler, Nature Chemistry 2024 16:6, 2024, 16, 1015–1023.

3 J. Eisermann, Y. Liang, J. J. Wright, E. Clifford, J. D. E. T. Wilton-Ely, M. K. Kuimova and M. M. Roessler, Chemistry – A European Journal, 2024, 30, e202402035.

4 K. H. Richardson, J. J. Wright, M. Šimėnas, J. Thiemann, A. M. Esteves, G. McGuire, W. K. Myers, J. J. L. Morton, M. Hippler, M. M. Nowaczyk, G. T. Hanke and M. M. Roessler, Nature Communications 2021 12:1, 2021, 12, 1–8.

5 K. Abdiaziz, E. Salvadori, K. P. Sokol, E. Reisner and M. M. Roessler, Chemical Communications, 2019, 55, 8840–8843.

6 D. Facchetti, Y. Dang, M. Seif-Eddine, B. L. Geoghegan and M. M. Roessler, Chemical Communications, DOI:10.1039/D4CC04013A.