Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference:	GR/S85528/01
Title:	Study of Bio-related Interfaces by Synchrotron Radiation.
Principal Investigator:	Held, Professor G
Other Investigators:
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:
Department:	Chemistry
Organisation:	University of Cambridge
Scheme:	First Grant Scheme Pre-FEC
Starts:	16 October 2004	Ends:	15 October 2006	Value (£):	120,158
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:	Chemical Biology Surfaces & Interfaces
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:	Chemicals Pharmaceuticals and Biotechnology
Related Grants:
Panel History:
Summary on Grant Application Form
The proposed research aims for a detailed understanding of elementary interactions and reaction mechanisms governing the chemistry of interfaces which are of fundamental importance for the interaction of bio-relevant molecules with solid surfaces. Water is one of the most important reactants and solvents in chemistry in general and bio-chemistry in particular. To date it is not clear, however, what the chemical composition of water-metal interfaces is; the water molecules could be intact or partially dissociated. Answering the question, under which circumstances the water molecules dissociate, will be a central part of the research conducted in this project. The second central topic is the interaction of chiral molecules with metal surfaces, which are either achiral or intrinsically chiral themselves (stepped-kinked surfaces). The aim is to characterize adsorption geometries and surface reactions with respect to the molecular chirality using circularly polarized synchrotron light.For both parts of the project highly monochromatized synchrotron radiation with variable polarisation will be used, which has only become availablerecently from modern 3rd generation synchrotron radiation sources. The techniques we are planning to apply are a blend of well established methods andnovel variations of established methods, which will be explored and further developed within this project. This includes the analysis of chemical shifts and the application of symmetry selection rules in photoelectron spectroscopy, and the use of chircular dichroism in near edge X-ray absorption fine structure measurements as a novel way of characterizing the chirality of adsorption systems in situ.
Key Findings
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Organisation Website:	http://www.cam.ac.uk