11:20 a.m., Jan. 26, 2010----Bayrammurad Saparov, a doctoral student in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Delaware, has been named a recipient of the prestigious 2010 Ludo Frevel Crystallography Scholarship Award by the International Centre for Diffraction Data.

THIS STORY

E-mail

Print

Twitter

The $2,500 award, named in honor of the founder of the scholarship fund, is given annually by the ICDD to aspiring crystallographers. The organization notes that the science of crystallography has played a key role in the development of X-ray diffraction, electron diffraction and neutron diffraction for the elucidation of the atomic structure of matter.

Saparov works in the research group of Svilen Bobev, assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

“I am pleased with the news because the Ludo Frevel Award is an international recognition of our past work and also our proposed project for the near future,” Saparov said.

Saparov said he was drawn to the field through mentors who helped him realize that important properties of chemicals depend on their crystal structures, “which ultimately drew my interest to crystallography.”

He added, “Crystallography is a powerful tool that allows us to rationalize, predict and engineer certain physical properties of a given material.”

Bobev said Saparov's research focuses on “synthetically very challenging intermetallic compounds of the alkaline-earth and rare-earth metals with selected transition metals and the heaviest pnicogens, antimony and bismuth.”

He said these compounds are narrow-gap semiconductors and exhibit intermediate properties between those of typical insulators and typical metals, adding the work “is motivated by two of the greatest challenges of our time -- energy beyond fossil fuels and the environment.”

Saparov's contribution to this important area consists of synthesizing and structurally characterizing fundamentally new compounds, which could find applications as thermoelectric materials, Bobev said. Such materials allow for the direct inter-conversion of electricity and heat and can be used in power generators or, conversely, in solid-state refrigerators. They can help reduce carbon emissions and utilize thermal energy that otherwise would be wasted, for example, exhaust heat.

After joining the research group in 2006, Saparov synthesized a large number of new and very interesting compounds within a very short period of time, Bobev said, earning him lead author status in an article published in the Journal of Solid State Chemistry.

“Bayram also realized, all by himself, that there is actually even more interesting chemistry in this system and discovered several other unprecedented classes of compounds,” Bobev said. “These first-of-a-kind examples will impact our understanding of complex structures and could have much broader implications over many other areas of chemistry. We have since then written three more papers and have reported the structures of more than a dozen new compounds -- a remarkable achievement for any student in the middle of his or her graduate studies.”

In addition, Saparov has made presentations at two American Chemical Society National Meetings and at the Mid-Atlantic Inorganic Symposium.

“I am very happy that Bayram's hard work on elucidating of the atomic structure of matter was recognized by the International Centre for Diffraction Data award committee and he was selected as one of the recipients of the 2010 Ludo Frevel Crystallographic Scholarship,” Bobev said. “Such an honor not only establishes him as an aspiring young expert in X-ray diffraction, but will also stimulate other graduate students in the department to learn more about the science of crystallography.”

Article by Neil Thomas
Photo by Ambre Alexander