University of Groningen A journey into the coordination chemistry, reactivity and catalysis of iron and palladium formazanate complexes Milocco, Francesca

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University of Groningen

A journey into the coordination chemistry, reactivity and catalysis of iron and palladium

formazanate complexes

Milocco, Francesca

DOI:

10.33612/diss.160960083

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Publication date:

2021

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Citation for published version (APA):

Milocco, F. (2021). A journey into the coordination chemistry, reactivity and catalysis of iron and palladium

formazanate complexes. University of Groningen. https://doi.org/10.33612/diss.160960083

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Acknowledgments

This is probably the most difficult, most beautiful and most important part of the thesis to write. I first came to Groningen in March 2015, “just for two months” during the master project, unaware that I would be back the year later and that I would spend 4 (and more) years living in this amazing and vibrant city in the North of the Netherlands, where continuously many people come and many people leave but they all definitely leave a sign! Therefore, there are many people to thank for having shared a piece of this incredible journey with me. It is thanks to all of you if, besides all the difficulties and challenges that comes together with a PhD, I had a memorable time in the past years.

First of all, Edwin, thank you for brining me on board of your group! It has been a real pleasure working with you. You are one of the most intelligent, kind and honest people I have ever met, a truly mentor capable of bringing out the best traits from the people you work with. During all our meetings and discussions, you have always evaluated my opinion, challenging me with your deep and difficult questions on scientific topics and beyond. From the first moment I met you (in 2015) I have been amazed by the trust you gave me, and since then it has been mutual. I am grateful for the many opportunities you gave me during my PhD, which allowed me to grow scientifically, professionally and personally. I participated to numerous courses, summer schools and international conferences and I enjoyed travelling with you in several conferences since spending some time together outside the lab/office allowed me to get to know you better as a person. Doing a PhD is stressful, but your supportive supervision played a decisive role in minimizing the downside of it and making it all worthy. Thanks to Gertruda, Jelte and Famke for hosting us during BBQs and cheering up the online meetings.

Wesley thank you for being my second Promotor and for your valuable help and feedbacks. Thanks

also to your picky questions I have learnt to defend my standpoint. I would have never imagined that the last experiment of my PhD would have been with you on a Saturday morning after the lockdown (you for sure remember the smelly compounds of Chapter 4)!

I would like to thank the reading committee members, Prof. M. Tromp, Prof. M. Albrecht and Prof.

M.A. Gruden-Pavlović) for reading, providing valuable suggestions and approving my thesis. Moniek

it has been interesting to measure the XES with David back in 2017, even if we then didn’t go forward.

Martin and Maja I am glad to have you as representative of two COST Action communities, CARISMA

and ECOSTBio, respectively, since they both had a fundamental role in my PhD.

Also thanks to the other opposition committee members, Prof. B. Milani, Prof. P. P. Pescarmona, J. E.

M. N. Klein, D. L. J. Broere. Barbara if it weren’t for you I would have maybe never discovered

Groningen and all the people around it! Also thanks for everything you taught me during my master project which has been very useful for my PhD as well. I am happy that we kept in contact and that eventually we found a way to obtain what was supposed to be the target of my master project (Chapter

8). Paolo I really enjoyed working on the CO2 project together (Chapter 7). Thank you for introducing

me to a more applied side of chemistry as well as to alternative ways to play Briscola in 5! I am looking forward to work together on the new project. Johannes you and your group have been a great addition to the MOLAN. Thanks for all the useful discussions and chats, for treating us with dinners (or you would probably say to auto-invite myself and other people for dinner!), chocolates and candies (even if you were usually forgetting our office) and wine tasting! Danny thank you for the discussions during your period in U.S. working also on iron formazanate complexes and during conferences and karaoke.

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To my awesome Paranymphs, Alessandra De Santi and Folkert de Vries thanks to be on my side.

Ale first you were the “pretty girl from engineering coming to use our glovebox early in the morning”.

Then you also came back for the PhD and since I started to get to know you better you became a fundamental support for me. From all the social moments shared together (borrels, evenings out, festivals and so on) to our chats during lunch break (I am happy we kept this tradition also now that you are in Austria!), often complaining about our troubles with the ongoing projects, but also sharing a lot of personal stuff, you became a true friend. Our walks in the fields during the pandemic have been a great diversion to the lockdown/thesis-writing-reclusion. You are a very cheerful, organized and down-to-earth person; there are few people capable of dealing with the stress of the PhD with your peace-of-mind mood. I am glad to have you as my paranymph and I am looking forward to be on your side soon for your defense as well!

Folky, you have been a great student, a reliable colleague, several times co-author and a good friend,

so you have definitely earn the title of paranymph! I have known you since your bachelor, during my first time in Groningen, and after uncovering that behind the shy and silent guy is hidden a very talkative, kind and profound person we quickly got close! Since then we shared so many things that it is impossible to mention them all. Among them, you have been my master student during my first year where we had to learn together many of the methods needed for Chapter 2 and 3, you have been of great help for that. From the research point of view your contributions was very important for the outcome of my thesis (including choosing to work with a ligand that lead to many surprises as well as frustrations)! Even more important, you were a great support from a personal point of view as well. Besides all the borrels, and parties, thanks for all the Dutch-Italian sessions, DutchLunch, Hollandse Uurtje playlist. You now got the best fumehood of the lab and I know it is in good hands!

To all our collaborators thanks for your help in realizing what is included in this thesis: Serhiy

Demenshko and Franc Meyer (for SQUID and Mössbauer), Jordi Cirera and Remco Havenith (for

calculations), Yasser Alassmy (for the assistance with the window-reactor after Arjen left), Arjen

Kamphuis (I enjoyed so much our collaboration for Chapter 7. We have worked so good together that

we were both surprised for how smoothly the project was going! Co-writing the paper has also been very instructive.)

Thanks to the technical staff for all your precious help: Oetze (thank you for nor retiring before the end of my PhD!), Pieter and Johan (for all the chats during my long NMR experiments and the help with all kinds of possible settings. Pieter thank you for your infinite patience and your big help with my paramagnetic spectra and thanks to both of you for the discussions on Chapter 4), Jacob Baas (X-Ray, SQUID) Jur Van Dijken (DSC), Léon (IR) and Renze, Monique, Theodora and Hans (Analytical Department). Thanks for the bureaucratic help to Hilda, Alfons and Gaël.

To the students that have worked with me: Hanneke (Chapter 3. I didn’t expect to start supervising a student already from my 3rd_{day of PhD, but I got lucky to start with you!), Luuk (Chapter 7), Edwin,}

Pieter, Renske, Imke (Chapter 2), Silene (Chapter 3. I enjoyed going together at dancing classes!) and

to all the others that have joined our group: Rahul, Tamara, Sumeet, Rachael, Emma, Denise. Johan and Onno¸ that together with Folkert and Jelte have really helped to create a cheerful atmosphere in the lab at the beginning of my PhD.

To all the current and past PhDs of the group. Jelte (Jeltina) thank to you I was not the only loud person of the group! I really appreciate your enthusiasm and passion in what you do and your willingness in helping the others! Thanks also for all the SECs, we definitely had a lot of fun and a lot of frustration! It’s a pity that we didn’t go forward, we can blame the COVID for that! Beibei we definitely had the most private office and I really enjoyed share it with you. When you first arrived, we could hardly

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communicate with each other, both our strong accent didn’t make it easy, but you really put effort to integrate and I discovered what a positive person you are. It was nice to find every day a smiling person in the office! Ranajit, we also had our difficulties with the language. I remember at the beginning of my PhD struggling when you had to explain me how things were working in the lab and we had troubles to communicate, but eventually we managed to overcome them. We had many scientific and personal discussions, sometimes also clashing, but I hope they contributed to both our growth. Raquel, since I joined the group you have been a fundamental point of reference for me both inside and outside the lab. You guided me scientifically and through the dynamics of the group and you introduced me to the social life outside the lab! It was a pity that we could overlap only for few months. I have always found impressive how deeply we connected in such a short time, 2 months the 1st_{time and 3 months the 2}nd

time! We did so many things together in that timeframe that it definitely feels much longer! I am glad we kept in contact and visited each other. I wish you all the best for your future with your lovely family, Matt and the little Vera! Mu-Chieh, your thesis, the first one in the group, is still being used as the “bible of formazanate”!

To the Klein group. Taegeun (Teo), I am happy that when you came to Groningen you shared with us the lab and office! You are a noble person so we were lucky to have you with us! I loved in those years to chat with you during lunch and in other moments. Thank you for being always understanding with everyone and for making the best out of every situation. Svenja, it has been exciting and tough for you moving to Groningen for the last year of the PhD. I am glad that you have done so and that we had the chance to get to know each other! Kristopher (Kristo), thank you for the lekker Mexican recipes and for the Salsa dancing! Evgenia, Isaac (good luck with your PhD!)

To the old&new Brownies: Francesco, Davide, Shaghayegh, Duenpen, Hans, Ruben, Mauritz, Jacopo,

Andy, Esther, Hugo, and a special thanks to Sandeep, Juan, Luuk, Tjalling, Linda (thank you for the

resin) Jorn and Hans - who helped me during the years with all kind of spectroscopy and electrochemistry issues (EPR, UV-Vis, IR, SEC). Christina over the years we kept on encountering first in conferences and then in Groningen, until we began to plan our travelling around Europe together! Thank you for always being up for a drink with me in whatever country we would meet! Laura thank you for your friendship, for the nice chats during dinners, lunch or walks with Maria Francisca! Thanks to the whole MOLAN group for the useful discussions during the MOLAN meetings and for all the social activities and travels (canoeing, Rostock, Odense, Belgrade).

To the people from Building 18: Johan Luchies (bedankt voor onze dagelijkse conversatie in het Nederlands!), Marco Carlotti, Yanxi, Viktor, Andrew, Soni, Dorus, Jeffrey, Vanda, Hugo. Filippo I am very glad that you moved to building 18 at the end of your PhD. It was great to have a chat together, complaining about the PhD (or the world) was always a great relief. Thank you for all your support during the thesis writing and for the walks during the lockdown!

What has made those years special are all the moments outside the lab. The BORREL was a perfect way to finish the week and from there many more other activities were conceived, like dinners, evenings out, Koffers-eveinings, Briscola’s evenings, Beer and Wine Festivals, JazzFietsTourFestival, Noorderzon and many more, often populated from the Italian-Spanish community but always open to everyone that could handle it! Thanks to all the people that have contribute to create those great memories! In addition to many of the above-mentioned people, here some others. Tilde (Thank you for the warmth welcome you gave me when I arrived in Groningen and for introducing me to all the Italian community! Also thanks to you and Rik for hosting me in Eindhoven and preventing the early-alarm for CHAINS and for the airport!), Giulia and Giumé (thank you for always opening your mirror

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houses to many cheerful evenings and thank you for the many drinks and chats shared), Ciccio (special thanks for frying the egg-plants for the parmigiana), Simone, Nadia, Sara, Patrizio, Michele, Marco

Manu, Clemens, Liliana, Pinto, Ana, Ruben, Juanfer, Mamen, Ravi, Varsha, Pablo, Gerda, Sambika, Ivana, Cora, Caterina, Ani (thank you for your delicious curry and for taking care of Marco in the lab,

in the past years you have probably seen him more hours than me at least awake!), Sven (B-Guy, present every time that there was smell of a party!), George (Gorgiii, you were more in our lab than in yours!), Lukas, Nicholas, Albert, Antonio, Monieque, Matteo, Pier, José, Diderik, Henrieke.

Douwe, Tim, Daan, Eline, Ron and Laura thank you for making me part of the dutch life.

To my friends in Italy for always being there for me! Your friendship means a lot to me. Lau, Anni e

Vale (Capiamoci!), Elisa. Al gruppo dei Chimici di Trieste Ale, Prime, Marta, Brus, Paolo, Nik, Baldo, Edo e agli Amici dei Chimici Bruno, Gian, Tank a Maffo, Max e tutti gli Yocussini (sempre in piena!).

Alla Comunita’ San Marco (da muletti e assistenti di varie generazioni, allo Sbrego) perche’ ogni volta che rientravo in Italia mi sembrava di non essere mai partita. In particolare zia Flavia, LaFede, Elenina,

Sara, Ve, Ceck, Teacher per gli Spritz e le Merende organizzate spesso a casa della zia ai miei ritorni.

Fam. Molinari, Cantoni e Gardellini per aver fatto parte di alcuni pezzetti di vita groningese (chi spinti dalla figlia, chi a distanza e chi volontariamente). Un grazie speciale a Renato (ormai diventato un autista di fiducia e compagno di viaggio) per essermi venuto a prendere insieme al mio Babbo a Linz (2017), Groningen (2020) e aver fatto consegne a domcilio di vino (2019).

I had the luck to travel a lot during my PhD for several conferences and courses and I encountered many friendly people (too many to be named), some recurrently, and I felt becoming part of an international community. I think this is one of the most important achievement of my PhD path and I am glad to have made so many friends all around the world.

Aan mijn schoonfamilie. Lies, Gerald, Iris, Chris, Judith, Frank en Leon om me thuis te laten voelen en verdiep me in de Nederlandse cultuur.

To my wonderful family. Non è sempre stato facile essere lontani da voi, ma il vostro amore mi ha sempre accompagnata e mi accompagnerà ovunque io vada. Grazie alla Nonna Vanda, Nonna Lia, Zio

Paolo, Betta, Kia (sempre vicine anche da lontano, sei la mia stella gemella), Michi, Francesco (il tuo

arrivo è stato una gioia immense), mamma e papà (è grazie al vostro incondizionato sostegno se sono arrivata fino a qui). Vi voglio bene!

Marco, we started this journey together and I am lucky to have shared it with you. Two chemists, two

PhDs in the house can be risky in many ways and I am so proud of how we managed to support each other during these years through all the difficult moments but also to enjoy together so many happy moments and to build our future together. Thank you for being by my side, for understanding me and making me laugh! I love you.

Francesca