During summer few members of our group had a great opportunity to visit QUILL (Queen’s University Ionic Liquids Laboratories) – most established centre dedicated to studying ionic liquids. The visits  were undertaken under the Synergy Project (founded by National Agency for Academic Exchange) which aims to establish international partnerships with leading universities.  It was an exciting opportunity to conduct a research in collaboration with dr Gosia Swadźba-Kwaśny’ s group and dr Nancy Artioli’s group in the area of characterization of novel acidic ionic liquids (PhD students: Anna Szelwicka, Justyna Więcławik), deep eutectic solvents (PhD student: Natalia Barteczko), characterization and application of N-doped carbon materials in organic transformations (dr Alina Brzeczek-Szafran) and immobilized catalysts in the synthesis of cyclic carbonates from CO2 (dr Agnieszka Siewniak, who also gave a talk on that topic at the School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering during the seminar series).

Dr Agnieszka Siewniak and our PhD student Anna Szelwicka were also lucky to take part in the QUILL Meeting which was held during their visits at QUILL. During the meeting Anna gave a talk on ‘Protic ionic liquids with anionic clusters of sulfuric acid as efficient catalysts for ε-caprolactam synthesis’.

QUILL Meeting, organized annually, is a fascinating opportunity for QUILL staff, students and Industrial Advisory Board members, along with invited guests from local and international industry and other academic institutions to discuss current trends in the area of Ionic Liquids. We are happy we could take part in this event!

Thank you for a great hospitality and we are looking forward the exciting results of our collaboration!