Ryan Hellyer

Tag: chemistry

  • Lehn Stock

    I attended the Dunedin Supramolecular symposium and presented my poster on mixed cobalt(III)/silver(I) coordination complexes. The star of the show was Nobel prize laureate Jean Marie Lehn who spoke about his pioneering work in the area of supramolecular chemistry.

    From the Supramolecular chemistry Wikipedia page : “Supramolecular chemistry refers to the area of chemistry which focuses on the noncovalent bondinghydrogen bonding, metal coordination, hydrophobic forces, van der Waals forces, pi-pi interactions, and/or electrostatic effects to assemble molecules into multimolecular complexes.

    Jean Marie Lehn. Nobel Prize winner.

  • Jenel Bode comes to Dunedin!

    Woot! Got a lift back to Dunedin from Christchurch with my old hockey coach Jenel Bode who I’m hoping will take a job with the Dunedin Ice Hockey Association as a professional hockey coach/skating instructor. We stopped off at the Moeraki boulders on the way.

    Jenel Bode on top of a Moeraki boulder

    Jenel Bode displaying a Moeraki boulder

    Yvette and I took her up onto the chemistry department roof to show her the city from up high.

    Yvette Absalom and Jenel Bode on top of the University of Otago Chemistry Department roof.

  • People in Hobart

    Whilst surfing my backups I found these photos from my trip to Hobart in 2007. The first two are from a trip with Kelly Kilpin, Lisa McClintock and Vicki Argyle on a boat in Hobart. The second two are from dinner that night at Sals restaurant.

    Kelly Kilpin and Lisa McClintock on the water in Hobart
    Kelly Kilpin and Lisa McClintock on the water in Hobart
    Vicki on the water in Hobart
    Vicki on the water in Hobart
    Vicki at Sals in Hobart
    Vicki at Sals in Hobart
    Vicki surfing another whale
    Vicki surfing another whale

  • Hobart

    I went to Hobart for IC07 which is the biggest inorganic chemistry conference in Australasia. The conference was a success. I met lots of new people, made some new friends and thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

    Hobart is an excellent place to visit. It’s very picturesque, the weather is great and it’s not too busy.

    The main bridge into Hobart

    Architecture in Hobart

    View of Hobart from above

  • Iron(VI)


    Karl Wieghardt was visiting the Brooker Bunch and whilst here he found out he’d made the worlds first iron(VI) compound! While celebrating at Eureka, Sally arranged this cake with six silver candles to represent his new discovery.

    For any of you non-chemists, discovering iron(VI) is pretty huge! Iron is almost always found in the +2 and +3 states so 6+ is completely nuts!  There’s some more information about it here … http://www.news.wisc.edu/12636

    Karl Wieghardt Iron(VI)

  • Debbies 21st

    I went down to Invercargill to celebrate Debbie’s birthday. Debbie is a fellow chemistry geek and one of the awesomest people I know. Happy 21st Debbie 🙂

    Debbie Jordan - birthday cake

    Blowing, blowing, blowing …

    Debbie Jordan blowing out her candles

    BLOWN!

    Debbie Jordan blown

    The speeches: So what did Carla say that made Debbie squirm so much?

    Debbie Jordan squirming

  • Brooker Bunch

    Here’s a photo of the Brooker Bunch, the research group (which I’m a member of) of Prof. Sally Brooker. From left: Jason Price, Nick White, Andy Noble, Sally Brooker, Jon Kitchen and Ryan Hellyer (me).

    Brooker Bunch 2006

  • Stock pot chemistry

    First came the number eight wire, now comes the stock pot 😛 We needed to scale up a reaction in the lab (potassium permanganate oxidation), so instead of repeating it a gazillion times, Sally suggested I got a big pot and scaled it up 🙂 Since giant beakers from Aldrich cost a fortune (and break easily), I went and found the biggest, baddest, cheapest stock pot I could find at the Warehouse (NZ equivilent of Walmart), stuck a mechanical stirrer in it, heated the blazes out of it with a regular sized heater stirrer and we had a massive scale (by our standards) reaction vessel 🙂

    Stock pot chemistry

    Nick White helped me with some of this work as part of his summer project.

    Nick White and the stock pot

  • Froggat Rd

    I drove Debbie and Brendon down to Invercargill. We stopped at the worlds most exciting bus stop – Froggat Rd.

    Debbie Jordan and Brendon at Froggat Rd


    … I am Milton …

  • To Christchurch with Debbie

    I headed up to Christchurch with Debbie. We road tripped with her friends Davin and Emma (Goose). We went to an engagement party of some people I’d never met, promptly disturbed them and headed back to Dunedin the next day 🙂

    Emma …

    Emma/Goose

    Debbie …

    Debbie Jordan looking very Matrix’ish

    Davin … you’ll need to use your imagination as the photo didn’t turn out well.