Faculty of Science School of Chemistry

Franz Grieser

Professor

CONTACT DETAILS:

Address: School of Chemistry, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Vic 3010 Australia

Room: 251

Email: franz@unimelb.edu.au

 

Teaching responsibilties


Field of expertise

Colloid and Surface Chemistry and Sonochemistry

A vast number of chemical reactions which proceed imperceptibly slowly in homogeneous solution can take place spontaneously at a surface. The catalytic quality of surfaces which is widely exploited in the chemical industry, e.g. cracking of oil to give petroleum products, and in nature, is not particularly well understood. Part of the reason for this lies in the difficulty in studying the interface, which is only a few hundred pm thick, between two phases in situ.

Although a number of techniques have developed over the past decade to examine solid surfaces they are generally limited to conditions of high vacuum. Our research efforts have been aimed at developing spectroscopic methods which allow for a direct quantitative measurement of the interfacial properties of solid/liquid, liquid/liquid and air/liquid systems.

In our studies we have examined the surfaces of single monolayer surfactants adsorbed onto a solid substrate (using attenuated total reflectance spectroscopy), surfactant monolayers at the air/water interface (using fluorescence from a probe molecule), model membrane interfaces, i.e., micelles and vesicles, and surfaces of colloidal gold and silver (using surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy). We have also examined movement of molecules through an oil-water interface in order to understand the important parameters in solvent extraction processes (using dynamic attenuated reflectance spectroscopy). A considerable amount of our research work has made use of atomic force microscopy (AFM), which has provided direct force measurements between   interacting surfaces. This latter work provides important information about both static and dynamic properties of interfaces.

More recently we have examined the surfaces of a number of metal oxide and sulfide colloids using reactive radicals that can be monitored by kinetic spectroscopic techniques. Some colloids have been prepared using ultrasound. This method has opened up a totally new means of preparing ultra small particles (nanoparticles) which have interesting surface properties.

Ultrasound has also been used to initiate a range of chemical reactions, and as a means of decomposing organic pollutants. The surface chemistry involved in these processes is being studied.

For further information, visit the PFPC website and visit the sonochemistry research page.

 

Selected Publications:
  1. Elliot D. J.; Grieve K.; Furlong D.N.; Grieser, F., Advances in Colloid & Interface Science, 2001, 91, 113-158.
  2. Whitby C.P.; Scales P. J.; Grieser F.; Healy T.W.; Nishimura, S.; Tateyama H., J. of Colloid & Interface Science, 2001 235, 350-357.
  3. Grieser F, Ashokkumar M, Advances in Colloid & Interface Science, 2001 89-90, 423-438.
  4. Inoue H.; Elliot D.J.; Tada, M.; Nagamura, T., Grieser, F.; Sakaguchi, H.; Furlong, D.N., Colloids & Surfaces, 2000 169, 233-239.
  5. Badley, M., Grieser, F., J. of Colloid & Interface Sci., 2002 251, 78-84.
  6. Dagastine, R.R. and Grieser, F., Langmuir, 2004 20, 6742-6747.
  7. Rae, J., Ashokkumar, M.; Eulaerts, O.; von Sonntag C.; Reisse, J. and Grieser, F. Ultrasonics Sonochemistry 2005 12, 325-329.
  8. Dagastine, R.R.; Chau, T.T; Chan, D.Y.C.; Stevens G.W; and Grieser, F., Faraday Disc., 2005 129, 111-124.

 

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