Professor Tomislav Friščić PhD

Tomislav Friščić

School of Chemistry
Leverhulme International Professor in Green and Sustainable Chemistry

Contact details

Address
School of Chemistry
Haworth Building
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Tomislav Friščić is a Professor and Leverhulme International Chair in Green and Sustainable Chemistry. He is an expert in solid-state chemistry, and pursues the applications and  fundamental understanding of solid-state reactivity, such as mechanochemistry, photochemistry, thermochemistry, and more with the ultimate aim to establish a new, more efficient and environmentally-friendly system of chemical and materials synthesis. His work often involves industry partners in the pharmaceuticals, mining, metals and advanced materials space, and he is a co-founder of two start-up companies.

He has co-authored >300 research publications, book chapters and patent applications, and his group’s research has led to numerous awards, including the John C. Polanyi Award by the Natural Sciences & Engineering Research Council of Canada (2021), the “Spiridion Brusina” Medal of the Croatian Society for Natural Sciences (2021), the Award for Research Excellence in Materials Chemistry by the Canadian Society for Chemistry (2019), National Research Council Steacie Prize for Natural Sciences (2018), the RSC Harrison-Meldola Memorial Prize and Lectureship (2011) etc.

For more information, visit the Friscic Research Group webpage and Tomislav's Wikipedia page.

Qualifications

  • Professor & Leverhulme International Chair in Green & Sustainable Chemistry, University of Birmingham
  • Adjunct Professor, McGill University (Canada)
  • Affiliate Professor, Concordia University (Canada)
  • Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences (corresponding member)

Previous posts

  • Assistant (2011-2016), Associate (2016-2019) & Full Professor (2019-2022), McGill University (Canada)
  • Tier-1 Canada Research Chair in Mechanochemistry and Solid-state reactivity
  • Herchel Smith Research Fellow, University of Cambridge (2008-2011)
  • Post-doctoral Research Associate, Pfizer Institute for Pharmaceutical Materials Science, University of Cambridge (2006-2008)
  • Ph.D. in Chemistry, University of Iowa (2002-2006)
  • B.Sc. in Chemistry, University of Zagreb (1997-2001)

Biography

Teaching

Taught a wide range of courses at McGill University, ranging from General Chemistry to Advanced Materials, Supramolecular Chemistry, Physical Chemistry Laboratory and Integrated Chemistry Laboratory

Postgraduate supervision

  • Joseph M. Marrett (Ph.D. 2022-)
  • Yong Teoh (Ph.D. 2021-)
  • Linda Bechnak (Ph.D. 2020-)
  • Jogirdas Vainauskas (Ph.D. 2020-)
  • Galen Suh (Ph.D. 2019-)
  • Cameron B. Lennox (Ph.D. 2019-)
  • J. P. Dan Therien (Ph.D. 2018- , co-supervised with K. Auclair)
  • Jean-Louis Do (Ph.D. 2018- , co-supervised with L. A. Cuccia)
  • Farshid Effaty (Ph.D. 2020- , co-supervised with X. Ottenwaelder)
  • Tristan H. Borchers (Ph.D. 2017-, co-supervised with C. J. Barrett)

Other activities

Selected activities

Conference and symposium organisation

  • Co-Chair (with S. L. James), Faraday Discussion on Mechanochemistry: Fundamentals, applications and future (Cambridge, UK, September 12-14, 2022, Committee members: S. L. James, J. Mack, J. Batteas, H. Ito, L. Maini, D. Crawford)
  • Co-organizer, Mechanochemistry and Tribochemistry - New Chemistry for the Future, Symposium at the joint 51st International Union for Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) General Assembly, 48th World Chemistry Congress and 104th Canadian Chemistry Conference & Exhibition (with J. Batteas, E. Colacino, 13-20 August 2021)
  • Co-organizer, Implementing Mechanochemistry Processes in Chemical Manufacturing & Research Symposium at the 23rd Annual Green Chemistry & Engineering Conference and 9th International Conference on Green and Sustainable Chemistry (with A. H. Moores, J. Mack, Reston, VA, USA, 9-11 June 2019)
  • Lecturer, “Train the Facilitators Workshop”, 5-day intense Green Chemistry course organized by Yale University and UNIDO (Belgrade, Serbia, 26-30 November 2018)
  • Discussion Leader, Gordon Conference on Preclinical Form & Formulation for Drug Discovery (Stoweflake, VT, 5-9 June 2017)
  • Co-organizer, Mechanochemistry and solvent-free chemistry, Pacifichem 2015 (with E. Juaristi, C. L. Raston (Honolulu, Dec 15-20, 2015) (Symposium #322)
  • Organizer, The First Crystal Engineering and Emerging Materials Workshop of Ontario and Quebec, CEMWOQ-1 (Montreal, 20 May 2014)
  • Co-Chair, 170th Faraday Discussion (Mechanochemistry), McGill University, Montreal, Canada (May 21-23, 2014, Committee members: S. L. James, J. W. Steed, E. Boldyreva, C. Bolm, J. Mack)

Committee membership

  • Chair of the Canadian National Committee for Crystallography (CNCC, 2020-current)
  • Lead Investigator, NSF Center for the Mechanical Control of Chemistry (CMCC, 2020-current, along with Batteas, Martini, Braunschweig, Carpick, Felts, Freedman, Rappe - https://www.chem.tamu.edu/cmcc/people_page.php)
  • International Advisory Board of the International Mechanochemical Association (IMA, 2011-current)
  • Canadian Representative in the American Crystallographic Association (ACA, 2017-2020)


Editorial roles

  • Editorial Board member, RSC journal CrystEngComm (2013-2019)
  • Guest Editor (with A. J. Cruz-Cabeza, A. Lemmerer, M. D. Ward), Special Issue of ACS journal Cryst. Growth Des. in memory of Prof. J. Bernstein (2019/2020)
  • Guest Editor (with D.-K. Bučar), Special Issue of ACS journal Cryst. Growth Des. honoring Prof. W. Jones and his contributions to organic solid-state chemistry (2018/2019)
  • Guest Editor (with R. Banerjee, G. M. Day and H. Zhang) for the 2016 New Talent Special Issue of the RSC journal CrystEngComm (2016)
  • Associate Editor, Molecular Crystals & Liquid Crystals (Taylor & Francis journal) (2015-2017)
  • Guest Editor (with C. B. Aakeröy) for the North America 2014 IYCr Celebration-themed issue of the RSC journal CrystEngComm (2014)
  • Guest Editor (with S. L. James), Special Issue of Chemical Communications on "Mechanochemistry: fundamentals and applications in synthesis" (2013)
  • Guest Editor (with S. L. James), Special Issue of Chemical Society Reviews on "Mechanochemistry" (2013)
  • Guest Editor (with G. M. Day) for the Special Issue of the RSC journal CrystEngComm on "Dynamic behaviour in the solid state" (2011)

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Manyepedza, T, Auvray, T, Friščić, T & Rees, NV 2024, 'Electrochemically deposited transition metal dichalcogenide heterostructures as electrocatalysts: Accelerated kinetics for the hydrogen evolution reaction', Electrochemistry Communications, vol. 160, 107678. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.elecom.2024.107678

Ferguson, M & Friščić, T 2024, 'Exploring mechanochemistry of pharmaceutical cocrystals: effect of incident angle on molecular mixing during simulated indentations of two organic solids', Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, vol. 26, no. 13, pp. 9940-9947. https://doi.org/10.1039/d3cp05475f

Floyd, K, Gonnet, L, Friščić, T & Batteas, J 2024, 'The role of the milling environment on the copper-catalysed mechanochemical synthesis of tolbutamide', RSC Mechanochemistry. https://doi.org/10.1039/d4mr00031e

Lennox, CB, Borchers, TH, Gonnet, L, Barrett, CJ, Koenig, SG, Nagapudi, K & Friščić, T 2023, 'Direct mechanocatalysis by resonant acoustic mixing (RAM) †', Chemical Science. https://doi.org/10.1039/d3sc01591b

Ferguson, M, Richard, AJ, Valdez, J, Fiss, BG, Titi, HM, Provatas, N, Friščić, T & Moores, A 2023, 'Direct observation by high resolution transmission electron microscopy of gold(iii) particle transformation during aging reduction reaction', Faraday Discussions, vol. 241, pp. 278-288. https://doi.org/10.1039/D2FD00126H

Xu, Y, Marrett, JM, Titi, HM, Darby, JP, Morris, A, Friscic, T & Arhangelskis, M 2023, 'Experimentally Validated Ab Initio Crystal Structure Prediction of Novel Metal–Organic Framework Materials', Journal of the American Chemical Society, vol. 145, no. 6, pp. 3515-3525. https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.2c12095

Vainauskas, J, Borchers, TH, Arhangelskis, M, McCormick McPherson, LJ, Spilfogel, TS, Hamzehpoor, E, Topić, F, Coles, SJ, Perepichka, DF, Barrett, CJ & Friščić, T 2023, 'Halogen bonding with carbon: directional assembly of non-derivatised aromatic carbon systems into robust supramolecular ladder architectures †', Chemical Science. https://doi.org/10.1039/d3sc04191c

Julien, PA, Arhangelskis, M, Germann, LS, Etter, M, Dinnebier, RE, Morris, AJ & Friščić, T 2023, 'Illuminating milling mechanochemistry by tandem real-time fluorescence emission and Raman spectroscopy monitoring', Chemical Science, vol. 14, pp. 12121-12132. https://doi.org/10.1039/d3sc04082h

Richard, AJ, Ferguson, M, Fiss, BG, Titi, HM, Valdez, J, Provatas, N, Friščić, T & Moores, A 2023, 'In situ study of Au nanoparticle formation in a mechanochemical-aging-based method †', Nanoscale Advances. https://doi.org/10.1039/d2na00759b

Do, J-L, Auvray, T, Lennox, CB, Titi, HM, Cuccia, LA & Friščić, T 2023, 'Rapid, room-temperature, solvent-free mechanochemical oxidation of elemental gold into organosoluble gold salts', Green Chemistry, vol. 2023, no. 25, pp. 5899-5906. https://doi.org/10.1039/d3gc01150j

Borchers, TH, Topić, F, Arhangelskis, M, Vainauskas, J, Titi, HM, Bushuyev, OS, Barrett, CJ & Friščić, T 2023, 'Three-in-One: Dye-Volatile Cocrystals Exhibiting Intensity-Dependent Photochromic, Photomechanical, and Photocarving Response', Journal of the American Chemical Society, vol. 145, no. 45, pp. 24636–24647. https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.3c07060

Borchers, TH, Topić, F, Christopherson, JC, Bushuyev, OS, Vainauskas, J, Titi, HM, Friščić, T & Barrett, CJ 2022, 'Cold photo-carving of halogen-bonded co-crystals of a dye and a volatile co-former using visible light', Nature Chemistry, vol. 14, no. 5, pp. 574-581. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41557-022-00909-0

Comment/debate

Angerhofer, A, Auvray, T, Balema, V, Baláž, M, Batteas, JD, Blair, RG, Boldyreva, E, Bolm, C, Borchardt, L, Borchers, TH, Braunschweig, AB, Browne, DL, Carpick, RW, Ciaccia, M, Craig, S, Emmerling, F, Ferguson, M, Fiore, C, Friščić, T, Grätz, S, Halasz, I, Hamzehpoor, E, Ito, H, James, S, Kim, JG, Lamaty, F, Lampronti, GI, Laurencin, D, Leitch, J, Lu, E, Lukin, S, Mack, J, Maini, L, Martini, A, Mazzeo, PP, Michalchuk, AAL, Mittelette, S, Mohamed, S, Moores, A, Mortera-Carbonell, ADJ, Nagapudi, K, Niidu, A, Puccetti, F, Stahorský, M & Vugrin, L 2023, 'Kinetics and basic understanding: general discussion', Faraday Discussions, vol. 241, pp. 306-340. https://doi.org/10.1039/D2FD90082C

Editorial

Batteas, JD & Friščić, T 2024, 'Introducing RSC Mechanochemistry', RSC Mechanochemistry, vol. 1. https://doi.org/10.1039/d4mr90001d

Review article

Auvray, T & Friščić, T 2023, 'Shaking Things from the Ground-Up: A Systematic Overview of the Mechanochemistry of Hard and High-Melting Inorganic Materials', Molecules, vol. 28, no. 2, 897. https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules28020897

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