Fluorinated Materials Group

To perspective students, postdocs, and visiting scholars: Our research program provides training for students in the fields of organic chemistry, fluorine chemistry, electrochemistry, computational chemistry, and materials chemistry. A student/postdoc working in our research group will gain practical experience in multi-step synthesis, modern separation and characterization techniques, air-sensitive techniques, modern electrochemical techniques, and computational methods. In addition to these technical skills, students will also gain knowledge and skills important to their professional development. Our well-funded research program over the years has provided and will continue provide students a versatile platform to conduct cutting-edge research in broadly defined fluorine chemistry ranging from making C-F bond that is important to medicinal chemistry fields to breaking the C-F bond in fluorocarbons and hydrofluorocarbons including those persistent fluorochemicals.  

Group News

Oct. 2024, welcome Amit Lama from Nepal to join our group  to working on organofluorine chemistry. 

August 21, 2024,  a Gen-4 Engineering Research Center (ERC) – Environmental Applied Refrigerant Technology Hub (EARTH) is officially funded by NSF. Our fluorine chemistry projects involving hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) are now part of this big national wide collaborative effort to provide solutions for HVACR (heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration) industry. Dr. Sun leads a USD team from Chemistry and Sustainability joined the EARTH team which involves total six schools, University of Kansas (lead institution), University of Notre Dame, University of Maryland, University of Hawaii, University of South Dakota, and Lehigh University.  

August 2024, congratulations, Bernard, for your successful PhD dissertation defense!  

April 2024, congratulations, Mason, for receiving highly competitive UDiscover and NASA scholarship. 

Dec. 2023, welcome our new group member, Mahamadu Mahama (Tiah). 

Oct. 2023, welcome to our new group member, Maud N. Nartey.

August, 2023, congratulations, Shankar, for your successful PhD dissertation defense!   

May, 2023, welcome our REU student, Jackson L. Nolder, from Florida State. He works on chemistry related to modern refrigerants. 

May, 2023, our collaborative project on lithium-sulfur batteries with South Dakota Sochool of Mines & Technology (SDSMT) is now funded by NASA. 

May, 2023, ACS PRF will support our fundamental study of understanding activation of fluoride salts by fluoride-pi interaction, starting from September this year.

April, 2023, our new deoxyfluorination chemistry is now  funded by NSF. 

June, 2022, congratulations, Siyu, for successful landed a senior materials researcher in QuantumScape. She will apply her knowledge and skills in fluorine chemistry and electrochemistry to help the company to developing the next-generation lithium-ion battery for EVs.

May, 2022, congrats, Jordan, for your new job in Raybow PharmaScience. Jordan will help the company on R&D of new pharmaceuticals with his in-depth of organic and fluorine chemistry knowledge and skills. 

May, 2022, our undergraduate, Brady landed an industrial job at the Continuus Materials in Des Moines, Iowa, right after finishing his BS degree in chemistry from USD. Way to go, Brady, congrats! Brady did his undergraduate research in our group and was a winner of the USD Undergraduate Research Excellence Awards. 

Jan. 25, 2022: A manuscript done by Anji, Shankar, and Yao in a collaborative effort has been accepted for publication on CrystEngComm. Nice work everyone!

Our recent work on deoxyfluorination of carboxylic acids with KF and electron-deficient fluoroarenes, J. Org. Chem. 2021, 86, 6066. DOI: 10.1021/acs.joc.0c02491, was featured in Org. Chem. Highlights: Functional Group Interconversion. 

Jan. 20, 2022: Shankar won a poster presentation award at the 25th Winter Fluorine Conference. Congratulations!

Nov. 18, 2021: Congratulations to Brady won the 2022 Undergraduate Research Excellence Award!  

July 2021: Congratulations to Tania for your successful MS thesis defense. 

Congrats, Siyu and Jordan,  nice job on the JOC publication!

March 2021: Congratulations, Dr. Siyu Mao, for your successful PhD dissertation defense!

Welcome new graduate students Tania and Yao joining our group!

June 22nd, 2018, Welcome Dr. Khagendra Hamal, a recent PhD graduate from University of Nevada, Reno, to join us.  Dr. Hamal will work on new fluorination strategy involving sp and sp2 carbon. 

As of May 2018, our new  state-of-art battery testing system including a two-person MBrun glovebox and a 32 channels Arbin battery tester is uprunning.  This adds new research capacity to our group as well as the new Center for Fluorinated Functional Materials.

Welcome undergraduate researchers  Brock, Jack, and Lorenzo to join our group for summer research.

Congratulations, Siyu,  for winning the Graduate School Research Grant, Nice Job!

July 1st, 2017, the Center for Fluorinated Functional Materials is up running with the $2.7 M support from the State of South Dakota. For more details, please see the USD news release.

Congratulations Erika, for winning the National Merit Scholarship! Excellent job!

Welcome our new undergraduate researchers Gisele Andree (U. Mass. Amherst) and James May (Univ. of Montana) and college-bound students Erika Moen  (will be a chemistry major at Univ. Oklahoma) and Elizabeth Butler (will be a biochemistry major at Univ. Minnesota).  

April 20, 2016, Great news for Joshua Arens, he just learned that he was selected as one of the recipients for the prestigious Truman Scholarship. Congratulations, Josh!  See more details on press release.

Congrats Josh for winning the University of South Dakota Undergraduate Research Excellence Award.

Congratulations to Mo and John for their new publication on Crystal Growth & Design, DOI: 10.1021/acs.cgd.5b01291 . Nice job!

Congratulations to our group members John Becker, Siyu Mao, and Jordan Kramer for winning the 2016 Student Research & Creative Activity grants from the Graduate School. Excellent Job!