Professor Peter Junk

Research interests

involve many aspects of inorganic and organometallic chemistry of the main group and lanthanoid elements, in particular organometallic and macrocyclic complexes. These complexes have relevance to such areas as catalysis, new materials and organic syntheses. There is a strong emphasis on synthetic methods and structural studies which involve a range of spectroscopic and structural techniques, in particular X-ray crystallography. Much of this research involves collaborative links with colleagues both within and external to the department.

In addition, research is also being conducted into supramolecular architectures involving crown ethers. Supramolecular chemistry involves exploration into the weaker interactions (ie non-covalent) in chemistry, namely, hydrogen bonding, p-stacking, dipole-dipole and arene interactions. We have been looking into the hydrogen bonding networks arising from crown ether acceptors and hydrated metal donor species.

Dr Junk has been awarded several ARC Large Grants both solo and in collaboration with colleagues. He received funding from the ARC RIEFP Grants to acquire a Bruker SMART 1000 CCD X-ray diffractometer in 1999 and has been the holder of a number of ARC Small Grants and Merit Research Grants at James Cook University. Dr Junk has been the recipient of two DAAD Guest Professorships at Universitaet Leipzig (1998, 2000, 2002) and received a prestigious 2001 Queensland Young Tall Poppy Award. He was elected as a Fellow to the RACI in 2002.