Bruno Chaudret
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Bruno Chaudret, born on 25 December 1953, is a French chemist and director of research at the CNRS. His research is in organometallic chemistry, particularly the interactions between hydrogen and transition metals.
Chaudret is a graduate of the École Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Paris (1975). He then completed a PhD. at Imperial College in London (1977) under Sir Geoffrey Wilkinson, and a Ph.D. at the Université Paul Sabatier in Toulouse (1979) under Professor René Poilblanc. He joined the CNRS as a research associate in 1977, and is now Director of Exceptional Class Research at the CNRS and Director of the Laboratory of Physics and Chemistry of Nano-Objects at INSA in Toulouse (UMR 5215 INSA-CNRS-UPS).[1]
Research
Chaudret synthesised the first bis(dihydrogen) complex and demonstrated its high reactivity, particularly for the activation of C-H, Si-H and more generally of poorly reactive bonds.[2] He has also been interested in the spectroscopic properties of these species, in particular the quantum exchange of protons in the coordination sphere of transition metals.
Chaudret developed a method for synthesising large aggregates (from 50 metal atoms to several tens of thousands of atoms). The method has enabled the synthesis of nanoparticles of controlled size, shape, surface and assembly of a wide variety of elements, alloys and semiconductor compounds.[3] Examples include ruthenium nanoparticles,[4][5] iron nanocubes or cobalt nano-sticks. These particles are of interest in the fields of nanomagnetism, luminescence, electronic transport, and chemical and catalytic reactivity; it has applications in the chemo- and enantioselective labelling of molecules of biological interest and biomolecules as well as, for example, the use of magnetic and catalytic properties on the same object for the storage of renewable energies.[6]
