Emeritus Professor. Senior Research Scholar.
MSc (Rhodes); PhD (University of Cape Town). Fellow (UCT), Fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa, CChem, FRSC, MSACI. Co-editor, J. Chemical Crystallography, J. Inclusion Phenomena.
Email: luigi.nassimbeni@uct.ac.za
Research Interests
The main thrust of the research is in the field of inclusion compounds. We are investigating the structure and thermal stability of a variety of host-guest compounds. Molecular inclusion chemistry has become an important technique for the separation of close structural isomers and for the optical resolution of chiral compounds. In particular, we are investigating the mechanism of enantiomeric resolution by families of resolving agents.
Host:guest ratios are established by a variety of techniques, including thermal gravimetry, NMR and density measurements, while the strength of host-guest interaction is measured by differential thermal calorimetry. Thermal measurements are correlated with structural results obtained by X-ray diffraction and molecular mechanics calculations.
We collaborate with a number of other research groups both at UCT and at other centres in South Africa. We also enjoy close ties with various groups overseas: Dr F. Allen (Cambridge), Prof A. Gavezzotti (Milan), Prof J. Lipkowski (Warsaw), Prof G. M. Sheldrick (Gottingen), Prof E. Weber (Freiberg), Prof. Jonathan Steed (Durham) and Prof. Dario Braga (Bologna).
