Marcin Palusiak

Profesional career:

2001 - M.Sc. degree in Chemistry, University of Łódź. The master thesis performed in the field of X-ray crystallography
2005 - Ph. D. degree in chemistry, specialization in structural chemistry
2010 - Habilitation in physical organic chemistry
2011 - professor of the University of Lodz
2011 - head of Structural Chemistry and Crystallography Group (Faculty of Chemistry, University of Lodz)
2011 - member of the Committee of Crystallography of Polish Academy of Science
2013 - member of the experts team of the Polish University Accreditation Commission
2014 - head of the Department of Theoretical and Structural Chemistry (Faculty of Chemistry, University of Lodz)
2017 - head of the Department of Physical Chemistry (Faculty of Chemistry, University of Lodz)
2018 - full professor in chemistry
2019 - member of the Council of University of Lodz

Research experience gained in Poland and abroad:

2004 Regensburg, Germany, Institute of Inorganic Chemistry, University of Regensburg, two scientific stays
2005 Regensburg, Germany, Institute of Inorganic Chemistry, University of Regensburg, scientific stay
2006 Girona, Catalonia (Spain), Institute of Computational Chemistry, University of Girona, scientific stay in the framework of HPC-Europa programme finantially supported by European Community
2007 Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Department of Theoretical Chemistry, Vrije Universiteit, scientific stay in the framework of HPC-Europa programme finantially supported by European Community
2009 Girona, Catalonia (Spain), Institute of Computational Chemistry, University of Girona, scientific stay in the framework of HPC-Europa programme finantially supported by European Community

Scientific interests:

Inter- and intramolecular interactions in crystals of organic and organometallic compounds. Structural investigations on the basis of X-ray experiments and quantum-chemical calculations. Topological analysis of electron density. Weak interactions, H-bonding, metal-ligand bonding, pi-electron delocalization and aromaticity.

In the context of most important research achievement the contribution to general knowledge on chemical bonding should be mentioned, with non-covalent intermolecular bonding in the first plan, in particular chemical bond characterisation by means of the many-body interaction model and electron density distribution analysis.

It is worth mentioning application of many-body interaction approach to energy analysis of multi-component complexes stabilized by hydrogen- and halogen-bonds. With that methodology the synergizm (cooperativity /anticooperativity) of individual intermolecular bonds has been assessed.

In the context of experimental achievements, recently a few different series of co-crystals have been synthesized, including a set of 30 new co-crystals of selected N-oxides (project financially supported by National Center of Sciences - NCN grant Opus). Various types of intermolecular interactions formed with contribution of N-oxo bond were reported, including H-bonds, halogen bonds, but also N-O…N-O bonding recognised and characterized in the literature for the first time. In the framework of the latter project it has been also proven that in N-O bond of N-oxides the pi-bonding has a character of back-bond. Earlier in the literature there was no general agreement in that issue.

A worth mentioning is contribution to the field of astro-chemistry (also in the framework of the project financially supported by National Center of Sciences - NCN grant Opus); spectral analysis of emission of interstellar objects such as protoplanetary nebulas was suggesting that with some probability the highly charged cations of benzene derivatives (formed due to high energy light exposition) are responsible for the effect known as “Extended Red Emission”. Results of research in that field suggest that rather not the benzene dications are responsible for this effect and that other molecular media should contribute to this phenomenon. The research was including UV-Vis spectral analysis with the use of TD-DFT theory used against experimental observations.

In general the scientific achievement is based on results being a mix of experimental and theoretical research, including X-ray research preceded by crystal synthesis and preparation (more than 110 crystal structures deposited in CDS), UV-Vis and FT-IR research, theoretical and experimental electron density distribution analysis, molecular modeling mostly for chemical bond characterization by means of various different theoretical models.