Oct 2022
The presentation consists of two parts: The first on the development of sustainable methodologies for performing multiphasic catalytic reactions in continuous flow; including the sustainable upgrading of alcohols to valuable acid, esters,[1] and amines.[2]
The second part of the talk is on the topic of developing ‘lab of the future’ [3]– some of our more recent endeavours in adopting digital science and automation tools to accelerate the discovery process will be presented.
[1] F. J. Roberts, C. Richard, F. W. Zemichael, K. K. Hii, K. Hellgardt, C. Brennan and D. Sale, React. Chem. Eng. 2018, 3, 942 - 948, DOI: 10.1039/C8RE00085A.
[2] A. Y. K. Leung, K. Hellgardt and K. K. Hii, ACS Sus. Chem. Eng. 2018, 6, 5479-5484. DOI: 10.1021/acssuschemeng.8b00338
[3] https://www.chemistryworld.com/webinars/the-age-of-digital-chemistry/4013807.article [webinar]
Professor King Kuok (Mimi) Hii is a Professor of Catalysis at Imperial College London. She began her independent research career in 1997 with an award of a Ramsay Research Fellowship co-sponsored by an ICI strategic research grant, before she was appointed as a Lecturer in Organic Chemistry at King’s College London in the following year. In 2003, she accepted an offer of a Senior Lectureship at the Department of Chemistry at Imperial College London, where she was promoted to a Readership (2009) and Professorship (2016). In 2016, KKH co-led the UK synthetic chemistry community in Phase III of the Dial-a-Molecule Grand Challenge and, in the following year, established UK’s first Grand Challenge Institute: the Centre of Rapid Online Analysis of Reactions (ROAR) at Imperial College’s new White City Research and Innovation campus. In 2018, she led a successful bid for an EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Next Generation Synthesis & Reaction Technology (rEaCt), to champion education and skills training in automation and data-led chemical research. In 2019, she was appointed as an Associate Editor of ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering.
Mimi Hii’s research interest in the area of Catalysis is wide-ranging, encompassing molecular design and synthesis, mechanistic and kinetic studies using new analytical tools, and reaction technologies; particularly for performing multiphasic catalytic reactions in continuous flow. To date, her research work has produced >130 scientific papers (culminating in a h-index of 39), 8 patents, as well as a number of monographs and book chapters.