The Department of Chemistry

Welcome to the Department of Chemistry Postgraduate Programmes.

The Department of Chemistry offers one taught master’s programme leading to the MSc in Occupational and Environmental Health and Safety.   There is also  MPhil and PhD degrees by research in the following areas:

• Isolation and structure elucidation of Natural Products from terrestrial plants and marine organisms including synthesis and bioactivity testing;
• Optical, electronic, magnetic and catalytic properties of organometallic complexes;
• Solar cell materials;
• Rational design and construction of supramolecular environmental monitoring and hazardous waste management and disposal;
• Food safety;
• Nuclear magnetic and quadrupole resonance studies of dynamic equilibria;
• Calorimetric studies on biological systems;

• The preparation of carbohydrates and novel boron-based catalysts for organic synthesis;
• Hydration processes in cement admixtures;
• Investigation of aggregate structures in biological membrane models;
• Virgin and waste polymer cracking in a fluidized-bed reactor
• Microbial degradation and fate of xenobiotics in environmental systems;
• Air quality monitoring;
• Endocrine disruptors in freshwater systems;
• Corrosion chemistry;
• Electroanalytical methods;
• Carbohydrate synthesis;
• Biological/biophysical chemistry;
• Oxidation of methane;
• Peptide chemistry; synthesis and optimization of macrocyclic pharmacophores as PPI inhibitors;
• Passive permeability evaluation of Peptoids;
• Biotransformation to produce novel chemical entities;
• enzymes in ionic liquids;
• thermotropic phase behaviour of metal-containing liquid crystal compounds;
• Low-temperature selective hydrocarbon oxidation;
• Photocatalysis (materials development, CO2 oxidation, water splitting);
• Zeolite catalysis;
• Bio-renewable chemicals from agricultural waste;
• Petroleum Chemistry - production and refining;
• Pollution prevention and remediation; and
• Occupational Health and Safety

Students may register on a part-time or full-time basis. The Board for Graduate Studies and Research offers a limited number of scholarships to students of the highest academic standing registering for MPhil/ PhD. Some Departmental funding, in the form of full-time demonstratorships, is available for registered MPhil/ PhD students not on scholarship.

NB: Additional information available in the Faculty of Science and Technology Postgraduate Booklet.