Academic Profile

Academic Profile
	Asst Prof Soo Han Sen Assistant Professor, School of Physical & Mathematical Sciences Email: hansen@ntu.edu.sg Asst Prof Soo Han Sen
Biography
Education PhD(Chem) University of California, Berkeley 2009 MS(Chem) Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2003 BS(Chem) Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2003 I was born and studied in Singapore up to junior college. I enrolled in Raffles Institution and Raffles Junior College. After receiving a Public Service Commission Overseas Merit Scholarship (Open), I completed my undergraduate studies and received a Bachelor and a Masters of Science in Chemistry from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). I worked for Prof. Christopher Cummins. I pursued my Ph.D. studies in U.C. Berkeley working with Prof. Christopher Chang and moved on to a post-doctoral fellowship with Dr. Heinz Frei at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. I started in SPMS-CBC in July 2012. The overarching theme of my research program is artificial photosynthesis. I developed a novel and unique form of artificial photosynthesis including original research in the critical functions of light absorption, charge separation, and multielectron reduction and oxidation catalysis. My current interests include the development of molecular photosensitizers and catalysts to harvest sunlight for proton reduction to produce solar fuels and chemicals.My team is also preparing photocatalysts and mesoporous materials derived from earth-abundant elements to valorize biomass lignin and degrade environmental pollutants by ambient condition C-C bond activation. I recently received the Asian and Oceanian Photochemistry Association Prize for Young Scientists 2016 in recognition of my team’s early contributions to artificial photosynthesis. http://www.ntu.edu.sg/home/hansen/Webpage/Public/Main.htm Selected Publications 1. Hong, Z.; Chong, W. K.; Ng, A. Y. R.; Li, M.; Ganguly, R.; Sum, T. C.; Soo, H. S. Hydrophobic Metal Halide Perovskites for Visible-Light Photoredox C-C Bond Cleavage and Dehydrogenation Catalysis, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2019, 58, 3456-3460. DOI: 10.1002/anie.201812225 2. Ng, L. K.-S.; Tan, E. J.-C.; Goh, T. W.; Zhao, X.; Chen, Z.; Sum, T. C.; Soo, H. S. Mesoporous SiO2/BiVO4/CuOx Nanospheres for Z-Scheme, Visible Light Aerobic C-N Coupling and Dehydrogenation, Appl. Mater. Today 2019, 15, 192 – 202. DOI: 10.1016/j.apmt.2019.01.010 3. Ng, Y. Y.; Tan, L. J.; Ng, S. M.; Chai, Y. T.; Ganguly, R.; Du, Y.; Yeow, E. K. L.; Soo, H. S. Spectroscopic Characterization and Mechanistic Studies on Visible Light Photoredox Carbon–Carbon Bond Formation by Bis(arylimino)acenaphthene Copper Photosensitizers, ACS Catal. 2018, 8, 11277 – 11286. DOI: 10.1021/acscatal.8b02502 4. Ghosh, D.; Febriansyah, B.; Gupta, D.; Ng, L. K.-S.; Xi, S.; Du, Y.; Baikie, T.; Dong, Z.; Soo, H. S. Hybrid Nanomaterials with Single-Site Catalysts by Spatially Controllable Immobilization of Nickel Complexes via Photoclick Chemistry for Alkene Epoxidation, ACS Nano, 2018, 12, 5903 – 5912. DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.8b02118 5. Dokić, M.; Soo, H. S. Artificial Photosynthesis by Light Absorption, Charge Separation, and Multielectron Catalysis, Chem. Commun. 2018, 54, 6554 – 6572. DOI: 10.1039/C8CC02156B 6. Hasan, K.; Wang, J.; Pal, A. K.; Hierlinger, C.; Guerchais, V.; Soo, H. S.; García, F.; Zysman-Colman, E., Bay-Region Functionalisation of Ar-BIAN Ligands and Their Use Within Highly Absorptive Cationic Iridium(III) Dyes, Sci. Rep. 2017, 7, 15520. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-14996-4 7. Gazi, S.; Dokić, M.; Moeljadi, A. M. P.; Ganguly, R.; Hirao, H.; Soo, H. S. Kinetics and DFT Studies of Photoredox Carbon-Carbon Bond Cleavage Reactions by Molecular Vanadium Catalysts under Ambient Conditions, ACS Catal. 2017, 7, 4682 – 4691. DOI: 10.1021/acscatal.7b01036 Patents 1. Soo, H. S.*; Gazi, S.; Dokic, M. PCT application PCT/SG2016/050056, WO 2016/126207 published August 2016. 2. Thirumal, K.; Mhaisalkar, S.; Mathews, N.; Soo, H. S. PCT application PCT/SG2018/050344, WO 2019/013709 published January 2019.
Research Interests
The overarching theme of my research program is artificial photosynthesis. I developed a novel and unique form of artificial photosynthesis including original research in the critical functions of light absorption, charge separation, and multielectron reduction and oxidation catalysis. My current interests include the development of molecular photosensitizers and catalysts to harvest sunlight for proton reduction to produce solar fuels and chemicals.My team is also preparing photocatalysts and mesoporous materials derived from earth-abundant elements to valorize biomass lignin and degrade environmental pollutants by ambient condition C-C bond activation. I recently received the Asian and Oceanian Photochemistry Association Prize for Young Scientists 2016 in recognition of my team’s early contributions to artificial photosynthesis.
Current Projects
(Hetero)arene C-H Activation and Umpolung Nucleophilic Substitution by High-Valent Iron on (Photo)electrochemical Cells C-C Bond Activation with Photoredox Vanadium Catalysts Under Flow Conditions Towards Advanced Fine Chemicals and Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Designing Earth-Abundant Visible Light Absorbers for Capturing Solar Energy Development of Multifunctional and Microfluidic Flow Reactor for Biomass Lignin to Chemicals by Photodriven Oxidative Catalysis Development of Photocatalytic Systems for H2 Evolution from Seawater using Earth-Abundant Molecular Components and Solar Energy Innovated Photosynthesis by Simultaneous CO2 Reduction and Pollutant Oxidation Integrated Renewable Energy and Environmental Remediation Strategies: Innovated Photosynthesis Using Molecular Catalysts Grafted on Nanomaterials Mechanochemical Approaches to Main Group Solid-State Photoredox Systems Molecular Copper Complexes as Luminophores for Affordable, Energy-Efficient, and Ultra Bright Organic Light-Emitting Diodes Novel Porous Materials for High-Efficient CO2 Capture and Catalytic Conversion Photocatalytic Degradation of Model Pollutants in Aqueous Media Photocatalytic degradation of Model Pollutants in Aqueous Media
Selected Publications
Agiral, A; Soo, HS; Frei, H. (2013). Visible Light Induced Hole Transport from Sensitizer to Co3O4 Water Oxidation Catalyst across Nanoscale Silica Barrier with Embedded Molecular Wires. Chemistry of Materials, 25, in press. Soo, HS; Agiral, A; Bachmeier, A; Frei, H. (2012). Visible Light-Induced Hole Injection into Rectifying Molecular Wires Anchored on Co3O4 and SiO¬2 Nanoparticles. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 134(41), 17104-17116. (3) Soo, HS; Macnaughtan, ML; Weare, WW; Yano, J; Frei, H. (2011). EXAFS Spectroscopic Analysis of Heterobinuclear TiOMn Charge-Transfer Chromophore in Mesoporous Silica. The Journal of Physical Chemistry Part C: Nanomaterials, Interfaces and Hard Matter, 115(50), 24893-24905. Soo, HS; Sougrati, MT; Grandjean, F; Long, GJ; Chang, CJ. (2011). A Seven-Coordinate Iron Platform and its Oxo and Nitrene Reactivity. Inorganica Chimica Acta, 369(1), 82-91. Harris, TD; Soo, HS; Chang, CJ; Long, JR. (2011). A Cyano-Bridged FeIIReIV(CN)2 Cluster Incorporating Two High-Magnetic Anisotropy Building Units. Inorganica Chimica Acta, 369(1), 91-96.

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