Catalysts based on the first-row (3d) transition metals are commonly seen in chemical and biological reactions. To understand the role of the transition metal in the catalyst, the element specific technique core level spectroscopy is used to probe the electronic structure and geometric properties centered around the metal site. Different types of X-ray spectra can be applied to probe the metal 3d character orbitals involved in reactions, which make it possible to identify and characterize the reactive sites of samples in different forms. A detailed interpretation and understanding of the different X-ray spectra requires a unified method which can be used to model different types of X-ray spectra, e.g., soft and hard X-rays. In this thesis, theoretical investigations of the electronic structures of 3d transition metal complexes through X-ray spectroscopy are presented. The restricted active space method (RAS) is used to successfully reproduce different types of X-ray spectra by including all important spectral effects: multiplet structures, spin-orbit coupling, charge-transfer excitations, ligand field splitting and 3d-4p orbital hybridization. Different prototypes of molecules are adopted to test the applicability of the RAS theory. The metal L edge X-ray absorption (XAS) spectra of low spin complexes [Fe(CN)6]n and [Fe(P)(ImH)2]n in ferrous and ferric oxidation state are discussed. The RAS calculations on iron L edge spectra of these comparing complexes have been performed to fingerprint the oxidation states of metal ion, and different ligand environments. The Fe(P) system has several low-lying spin states in the ground state, which is used as a model to identify unknown species by their spectroscopic fingerprints through RAS spectra simulations. To pave the route of understanding the electronic structure of oxygen evolution complex of Mn4CaO5 cluster, the MnII(acac)2 and MnIII(acac)3 are adopted as prototypical Mn-complexes. The 3d partial fluorescence yield-XAS are employed on the Mn L-edge in solution. Combining experiments and RAS calculations, primary questions related to the oxidation state and spin state are discussed. The first application to simulate the metal K pre-edge XAS of mono-iron complexes and iron dimer using RAS method beyond the electric dipole is completed by implementing the approximate origin independent calculations for the intensities. The K pre-edge spectrum of centrosymmetric complex [FeCl6]n– ferrous state is discussed as s and a donor model systems. The intensity of the K pre-edge increases significantly if the centrosymmetric environment is broken, e:g:, when going from a six-coordinate to the four-coordinate site in [FeCl4]n. Distortions from centrosymmetry allow for 3d-4p orbital hybridization, which gives rise to electric dipole-allowed transitions in the K pre-edge region. In order to deliver ample electronic structure details with high resolution in the hard X-ray energy range, the two-photon 1s2p resonant inelastic X-ray scattering process is employed. Upon the above successful applications of one-photon iron L edge and K pre-edge spectra, the RAS method is extended to simulate and interpret the 1s2p resonant inelastic X-ray scattering spectra of [Fe(CN)6]n in ferrous and ferric oxidation states. The RAS applications on X-ray simulations are not restricted to the presented spectra in the thesis, it can be applied to the photon process of interest by including the corresponding core and valence orbitals of the sample.

Nanoparticles are very interesting components. Due to their very large specific surface area they possess properties in between molecules and macroscopic materials. In addition, a material built up of hierarchically assembled nanoparticles could obtain unique properties, not possessed by the nanoparticles themself. A very interesting group of nanoparticles is the cellulose nanofibrils. The fibrils are found in various renewable resources such as wood, bacteria and tunicates. In this work fibrils extracted from wood is studied. In wood the fibrils are the smallest fibrous component with the approximate dimensions; 4 nm in width and length in the micrometer range, providing a high aspect ratio. In addition, they have a crystallinity above 60% and, hence, a high stiffness. These fibrils are hierarchically ordered in the wood fiber to give it its unique combination of flexibility and strength. The properties of the fibrils make them very suitable to be used as reinforcement elements in composites and, due to their ability to closely pack, to make films with excellent gas barrier properties. The key aspect to design materials, efficiently utilizing the properties of the individual fibrils, is to control the arrangement of the fibrils in the final material. In order to do so, the interactions between fibrils have to be well characterized and controlled. In this thesis the interaction between fibrils in aqueous dispersions is studied, where the main interactions are attractive van der Waals forces and repulsive electrostatic forces. The electrostatic forces arise from carboxyl groups at the fibrils surface, which either are due to hemicelluloses at the fibrils surfaces or chemically introduced to the cellulose chain. This force is sensitive to the chemical environment. It decreases if the pH is reduced or if the salt concentration is increased. If it is strongly reduced the system aggregates. In dilute dispersions aggregation causes formation of multiple clusters, whereas in semi-dilute dispersions (above the overlap concentration) a volume filling network, i.e. a gel, is formed. The tendency of aggregation, i.e. the colloidal stability, can be predicted by using the DLVO theory. In this thesis DLVO predictions are compared to aggregation measurements conducted with dynamic light scattering. Good agreement between experiments and the designed theoretical model was found by including specific interactions between added counter-ions and the carboxyl groups of the fibrils in the model. Thus, the surface charge is both reduced by protonation and by specific interactions. This emphasizes a much larger effect of the counter-ions on the stability then generally thought. Hence, this work significantly improves the understanding of the interfibril interactions in aqueous media. As mentioned above, the fibrils can be physically cross-linked to form a gel. The gelation is an instant process, occurring at pH or salt levels causing the interfibril repulsion to decrease close to zero. If a well dispersed stationary dispersion is gelled, the homogenous and random distribution of the fibrils is preserved in the gel. These gels can be used as templates to produce composites by allowing monomers or polymers to enter the network by diffusion. In an effort to mimic processes occurring in the tree, producing materials with fibrils aligned in a preferred direction, the ability to form gels with controlled fibril orientation were studied. Such networks were successfully produced by applying strain to the system prior or past gelation. Orientation prior gelation was obtained by subjecting the dispersion to elongational flow and freezing the orientation by “turning off” the electrostatic repulsion. Orienting the fibrils after gelation was achieved by applying shear strain. Due to the physical nature of the crosslinks, rotation in the fibril-fibril joints can occur, enabling the fibrils to align in the shear direction. This alignment significantly increased the stiffness of the gels in the shear direction. / QC 20111205

Porous materials or a porous media can be encountered in our everyday life, both in industrial and household systems and in the nature. Generally speaking all solid and semisolid materials are porous to some degree e.g. different dense rock types, plastics etc. Porous materials are constantly finding more and more applications, both in industry and research. Many commercially important process in the industry utilize porous media e.g. flow of fluids through porous media for separation process and porous catalyst supports. This has strongly contributed to the development of porous media with controlled properties, which can be utilized for understanding the behavior of liquids confined in the material, and the morphology of these synthetic materials.This thesis work brings some insight and understanding of porous materials i.e. Controlled Pore Glass (CPG). Report also contains a brief explanation of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, diffusion NMR and other techniques such as Mercury porosimetry.The first part of the thesis is focused on determining the required amount of liquid i.e. octanol needed to achieve full pore saturation for different CPGs with varying pore sizes. This was achieved by taking into account that the transverse relaxation time T2 is sensitive in the ms-ns of motional correlation times, and that there are physical factors in porous material which affect the T2. Second part, diffusion NMR is used to study self-diffusion of octanol confined in CPG, thus bringing some insight on mass transfer limitations within porous systems. The report present results obtained from experiments with NMR and Diffusion NMR, discusses the issues that can arise when investigating porous materials and suggest solutions.

Topical treatment containing undeclared corticosteroids and illegal topical treatment with corticosteroid content have been seen on the Swedish market. In creams and ointments corticosteroids in the category of glucocorticosteroids are used to reduce inflammatory reactions and itchiness in the skin. If the inflammation is due to bacterial infection or fungus, complementary treatment is necessary. Side effects of corticosteroids are skin reactions and if used in excess suppression of the adrenal gland function. Therefore the Swedish Medical Products Agency has published related warnings to make the public aware. There are many similar structures of corticosteroids where the anti-inflammatory effect is depending on substitutions on the corticosteroid molecular skeleton. In legal creams and ointments they can be found at concentrations of 0.025 ‑ 1.0 %, where corticosteroids with fluorine substitutions usually are found at concentrations up to 0.1 % due to increased potency. At the Medical Products Agency 19F-NMR and 1H-NMR have been used to detect and quantify corticosteroid content in creams and ointments. Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, NMR, is an analytical technique which is quite sensitive and can have a relative short experimental time. The low concentration of corticosteroids makes the signals detected in NMR small and in 1H‑NMR the signals are often overlapped by signals from the matrix. With 1H‑NMR characteristic signals could be detected in a less crowded spectral window between 5.96 ‑ 6.40 ppm where overlapping signals from the matrix often are absent. Since fluorine is less common in molecules, the option of using 19F‑NMR increases the possibility of finding fluorine-containing corticosteroids in creams and ointments. The corticosteroid signals in 19F‑NMR are detected at -165 ppm and -187 ppm, depending on where fluorine is located on the structure. Quantifying with 1H-NMR and 19F-NMR gave similar result with an accuracy of 98‑116 % and 89-106 % respectively, and RSD values between 2‑35 %, depending on the kind and amount of corticosteroid. Relations between the structure and some signals in 1H‑NMR were found, making it easier to determine the basic structure of unknown corticosteroids in creams and ointments. Screening experiments were performed on creams and ointments with known concentration corticosteroid in order to find minimum NS for analyzing products which might contain corticosteroids. In order to detect a corticosteroid concentration of 0.05 % 19F‑NMR needed 64 NS with an experimental time of 2 min and 1H-NMR needed 160 NS with an experimental time of 17 min. Concentrations of 0.025 % could for some corticosteroids be detected with these parameters. The possibility of spiking samples in order to discriminate between corticosteroids was also investigated. The corticosteroids available at the MPA could be discriminated from each other with at least one of the methods 1H‑NMR or 19F-NMR, and in most cases with both. A market research was done in order to search for counterfeits and salespersons in different health food stores were asked to recommend the best product to treat eczema or psoriasis. Nine recommended products were bought where one was found illegally containing a corticosteroid. In previous experiments at the MPA there had been occurrences of a split signal in 19F-NMR when analyzing creams. The split 19F‑NMR signal was shown to be related both to the presence of water and structural effects of the corticosteroid

Ionic liquids are continuously finding more and more applications, both in research and in the industry. Many attempts have been made to find parameters that could be used to describe all ionic liquid systems. Five years ago a Japanese group applied the work of Gutmann on ionic liquids to use ionic association to describe solvation effects. The group calculated ionic association from conductivity and diffusion measurements. This report presents a direct approach through electrophoretic NMR to measure ionic association in ionic liquids.  The report contains a brief introduction to ionic liquids and their properties as well as a short explanation of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, diffusion NMR and a more detailed explanation of electrophoretic NMR (eNMR). Experimental setups, taken from previous work by the NMR group at Physical Chemistry KTH, have been modified to allow for measurements in ionic liquid systems. The report discusses the issues that can arise when measuring eNMR in ionic liquids and suggests solutions. The method developed is principally built upon experiments on 1-butyl-3-methyl-imidazolium trifluoroacetate and is directly applicable to other ionic liquid systems. For more viscous systems than the one investigated here, slight changes will need to be made, as explained in the report.  In order to evaluate the method developed during the project the degree of association for 1-butyl-3-methyl-imidazolium trifluoroacetate has been calculated from experimental results and results in similar values as reported by Tokuda et al.. Furthermore, the temperature variation due to Joule heating during a complete eNMR experiment was also investigated by observing change in chemical shift.

This thesis has been focused around the Diels Alder reaction with the goal to design an enzyme catalyzed reaction pathway. To achieve this goal computer aided enzyme design was utilized. Common traditional methods of computational chemistry (B3LYP, MP2) do not do well when calculating reaction barriers or even reaction energies for the Diels Alder reaction. New calcu- lation methods were developed and tested. This was the focus of the first part of the thesis, by choosing a small system, extensive and heavy calculations could be done with CBS-QB3. Then by benchmarking faster methods of calculation (SCS-MP2, M06-2X) against the results, they could be graded by efficiency and cost. This was done anticipating that the same accuracy could be applied to larger systems where CBS-QB3 cannot be used. In the second part activating groups were investigated for both the diene and the dienophile, along with their effects on reaction rates. A qualitative analysis was done. This is important not only for the uncatalyzed reaction, but also interesting when searching for possible substrates for the enzyme reaction. In the last part the thesis presents a designed enzyme that catalyzes Diels Alder in silico using ∆5−3−Keto steroid isomerase. Using empirical calculations, the enzyme was scanned for catalytic activity. The catalytic effect was then showed with ab initio Quantum chemical calculations.

Electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance has been employed to investigate electro-responsiveness of an ionic liquid as an additive in lubricant oils on a gold surface. Polarisation of the surface reveals changes in frequency where an increase in magnitude amplified the observed response, corresponding to a controllable alternation of the ionic liquid configuration on the surface as a function of applied potential. The frequency changes are due to different packing of the anion and cation, respectively, on the surface as their mass densities and geometries are different. Relaxation of the system was reversible to the application of a potential and it was also found to be diffusion dependent, where the ratio between the ion diffusivities could be extracted from the results. Measurement of the system relaxation reveals a potential decay of that of a discharging capacitor, with an internal resistance inducing an initial potential drop due to the resistivity of the oil medium. The discharge behaviour was also proven to show high internal reproducibility validity within experiments. This newly discovered insight in responsive differences of ion packing is of importance, not only for ionic liquid additives in tribology, but for understanding and exploiting ionic liquids in an array of electrochemical applications.

The liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) of biomolecules is a phenomenon which received a lot of attention in the last years because it is not only related to theformation of membraneless organelles but also to neurodegenerative diseases. Lysozyme is a globular protein that undergoes LLPS in a buffer salt system andfor that it is well investigated with several techniques like microscopy, dynamic lightscattering (DLS) or small-angle X-ray scattering. In this work we investigate the effect of temperature, solvent and sample con-centration on the diffusion coefficient, the hydrodynamic radius and the viscosity oflysozyme using a DLS setup. Furthermore, the influence of these parameters on thecluster formation is addressed. Finally, we investigate the question if the LLPS oflysozyme in a buffer environment effects the formation of dynamic clusters.

Detergents are broadly used in our everyday life for cleaning and washing procedures. They are however, a source of water pollution and can have a negative effect on human health and the environment. To reduce their negative impact, a new trend of using only pure water for washing and cleaning applications is being implemented. However, a scientific basis needs to be established first, as the mechanisms and the effectiveness of this method are not fully understood. In this work, we aim to investigate the effect of water purity on the removal of oil from surfaces and the stability of colloidal systems. To do that, two purified water grades are compared with non-purified tap water and 10 mM NaCl solution. Results from measurement of oil film mass before and after water contact and Quartz Crystal Microbalance with Dissipation (QCM-D) indicate that purified water grades can wash a surface more efficiently than non-purified water grades. Contact angle measurements show that pure water facilitates the cleaning process while spreading of oil on plastic surfaces indicates that electrostatic interactions have an important role in the system. Visual observations of o/w emulsions, show that purified water grades redisperse the oil better. We hypothesize that the mechanism behind the cleaning and washing without detergents relies on the electrostatic interactions. To further investigate the effect of salt on cleaning mechanisms, we performed zeta potential measurements. Results indicate that salt has a negative effect on the stability of the particles.

Since our society became industrialised, the levels of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere have been steadily rising, to the point where it in early 2020 at is 413 ppm. The high concentration is causing several troubling effects worldwide because of the increase in mean temperature that it creates, which causes longer draughts, more severe floods, and rising seawater levels to name a few. There are a few measures that can be taken to reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, among which there are a number of methods that currently are being researched and/or used. The prospect of capturing carbon dioxide and using it as a carbon building block to make methanol is one solution that is particularly interesting, since it in theory could provide a fuel for combustion engines that is net neutral regarding carbon emission. Methanol can be synthesised from carbon dioxide using a heterogeneous catalyst consisting of copper, Cu, and zinc oxide, ZnO. This research is focused on one of the components of the catalyst, the metal oxide ZnO in the form of crystallites or nanoparticles (ZnO)n. Quantum chemistry is a branch of computational chemistry which is centered on solving the Schrödinger equation for molecular systems. Density functional theory, DFT, is an approach to quantum theory which in this study was used to calculate the geometry and energy of the particles. The supercomputer Tetralith in the National Supercomputer Centre, NSC, was used to carry out the calculations. The DFT calculations utilized the functional B3LYP and the basis set 6-31G (d,p). One of the largest particle sizes studied, (ZnO)20, with a structure that has a large, flat surface, was found to be the most energetically favourable. According to studies, the presence of an oxygen vacancy on the surface of ZnO reduces the amount of activation energy required for CO2 to bond to the particle, which increases the chance of forming CO and thus continuing the process of forming methanol. Two structures of (ZnO)20 were investigated in this regard, where oxygen atoms were removed at different locations, creating four versions of Zn20O19 in total. This proved yet again that the version with a large, flat surface yields the lesser amount of energy when an O atom is removed from the centre of its surface. The adsorption of CO2 to the ZnO clusters was studied by calculating the energy of adsorption, and this showed that it was the second version of (ZnO)20, without an O vacancy, that yielded the least amount of energy, thus being the most favourable species to engage in physisorption with CO2. Lastly, the activation energy was investigated, and a diagram of the reaction process of CO2 adsorbing to Zn20O19 forming (ZnO)20 and CO is presented in this paper, which shows that the required activation energy is 127 kJ/mol.