Professor G.M. Watkins BSc(Hons); PhD (University of Cape Town)

Professor of Inorganic Chemistry & Honours course coordinator

TEACHING
1st Year: Chemical & physical equilibria
2nd Year: Foundational Chemical Principles: Periodic trends of the main group elements; Introduction to the transition elements.
3rd Year: Coordination compounds & transition metal chemistry: Theoretical aspects
Honours Year: Group theory; Advanced applied vibrational spectroscopy; Inorganic reaction mechanisms.

RESEARCH INTERESTS
“Thermal and spectroscopic studies of transition metal complexes and applied chemical technology”.
As a physical inorganic chemist, my areas of interest are molecular spectroscopy, coordination chemistry and bioinorganic chemistry applied to areas such as nanotechnology. The group works with nmr, infrared and Raman spectroscopy, UV-visible spectroscopy, XRD(P) and thermal analysis (TG, DSC and TG-FTIR).

Current Research Areas:
Nanomaterials: Metal Organic Framework materials (MOF’s);
Bioinorganic metal complexes;: Ligand isotope studies of transition metal complexes