Tomislav ščć awarded NSERC’s Steacie Memorial Fellowship
The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada has awarded an E.W.R Steacie Memorial Fellowship to Prof. Tomislav ščć, to support his work in an innovative branch of chemistry that aims to develop environmentally friendly alternatives to solvent-based chemical processes.
NSERC awards up to six of these two-year, $250,000 fellowships annually to enhance the career development of outstanding and highly promising scientists and engineers.
ščć is a leading researcher in the fast-growing field known as “mechanochemistry” – an approach that uses mechanical force, rather than solvents, to drive chemical reactions. “His research has uncovered important information about how reactions occur in this process, which will help ščć and his team find ways to use mechanochemistry to recreate reactions in a way that is faster, more efficient and more energy-effective than with solvents,” .
“The Steacie Memorial Fellowship is an amazing recognition of my research group's efforts to create viable alternatives to the conventional -- and often wasteful -- approaches to chemical synthesis,” ščć said. “The generous award that comes with the Fellowship will enable us to focus fully on developing 'Chemistry 2.0' – a cleaner, solvent-free system of chemical synthesis that could replace traditional solvent-based approaches in research and industry.
“The two years dedicated exclusively to research in sustainable and green chemistry will enable us to establish the principles and exciting new mechanisms of this approach,” he added. “It will also enable us to hammer out the best ways to adapt this approach for cleaner, energy- and materials-efficient manufacturing."
“We are grateful to NSERC for its support of important research projects, including Professor ščć’s innovative efforts to create safer solvent alternatives,” said Suzanne Fortier, ƻԺ’s Principal and Vice-Chancellor. “Congratulations to Prof. ščć on this well-deserved recognition of his advances in decreasing pollution from, and increasing the efficiency of, crucial chemical reactions and processes.”
ščć last year was one of three early-career researchers to receive the ƻԺ .
ščć already shares his findings with the pharmaceutical and mining sectors, “two large industries that could greatly reduce their environmental impact and cost of doing business by doing away with solvents,” NSERC added.
PHOTO CREDITS: Martin Lipman / NSERC