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Daudi Saang'onyo

Research Interests
  • Renewable energy
  • Biomass conversion to fuels and chemicals
  • Organic and organometallic synthesis
  • Catalysis

 

Actively seeking employment in R&D | Organic and organometallic synthesis | Biomass conversion to fuels and chemicals | Homogeneous & heterogeneous catalysis | Reaction kinetics |

I am an experienced PhD candidate with 4+ years R&D experience in the development and design of novel homogeneous organoaluminum catalysts for conversion of biomass-derived sugars into 5-hydroxymethylfurfural in ionic liquids and organic solvent media. I have a strong understanding and experience in inert atmosphere synthesis using standard Schlenk line and glove box techniques.

I have extensive experience in mechanistic and kinetic studies of glucose isomerization and dehydration reactions catalyzed by organoaluminum catalysts. Furthermore, I have developed a method for probing the binding of aluminum Lewis acid catalysts on monosaccharides.

I am an expert in using analytical instruments for materials characterization and separation and quantitation methods. These include multinuclear nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR, 1D, 2D, variable temperature), X-ray crystallography, HPLC/HPLC-MS, GC/GC-MS, MSn, ART-FTIR, UV-Vis, Raman spectroscopy, BET, XRD, XPS, SEM, and XPS. In fact, I served in an 8-month appointment as a graduate assistant in charge of the Chemistry Department’s NMR facility, maintaining four high-field magnets by doing cryogen fills, user training and regular spectrometers repairs and troubleshooting.

Selected Publications
  1. Daudi Saang'onyo, Gary Selby, Darrin L. Smith. Validation of a Direct Analysis in Real Time Mass Spectrometry (DART-MS) method for the quantitation of six carbon sugars in a saccharification matrix. Anal. Methods 2012, 4, 3460–3465.
  2. Daudi Saang'onyo, Darrin L. Smith. Optimization of direct analysis in real time (DART) linear ion trap parameters for the detection and quantitation of glucose. Rapid Comm. Mass. Spectro. 2012, 26, 385–391.
Selected Publications: