Osvald Knop 

Professor Emeritus

DSc (Laval)

E-mail: chemistry@dal.ca
Fax: (902) 494-1310

Address: Department of Chemistry
Dalhousie University
Halifax, NS
Canada    B3H 4J3
 
Research Interests: Inorganic Chemistry

The main interest is in inorganic structural and solid-state chemistry, with occasional forays into related fields of organic and physical chemistry. Most recently, emphasis has been on attempts to discover general relationships underlying the trends in t he geometry of small molecules and composite ions that emerge when results of extensive in-house ab initio calculations are systematically examined and analyzed. The reasons for the existence of real and apparent exceptions to the VSEPR rules are also bei ng investigated, both by theory and experiment. Crystal chemistry of tetraradial tetraphenyl and related species (e.g. BPh4- and congeners) is being studied with special attention to their stereochemistry and "supramolecular" chemistry, and to cation-anio n interactions (including hydrogen bonding to aromatic ring systems, pi-pi stacking and similar secondary interactions). An extensive structural investigation of polyhalide anions by X-ray crystallography and Raman spectroscopy now in progress aims at a u nified description of the bonding and crystal chemistry of these puzzling chemical and crystallographic species.

Publications: See List