Mircea Dincă

Mircea Dincă
Dincă on receiving the 2016 Alan T. Waterman Award.
Born
Alma materPrinceton University (B.A.) (2003)
University of California, Berkeley (Ph.D) (2008)
AwardsACS Award in Pure Chemistry (2016)
Alan T. Waterman Award (2016)
Dream Chemistry Award (2015)
Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award (2014)
Cottrell Scholar Award (2014)
Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship (2014)
3M Non-Tenured Faculty Award (2013)
DOE Young Investigator Award (2011)
Scientific career
FieldsMetal-organic frameworks
Thesis Hydrogen Storage in Microporous Metal-Organic Frameworks with Exposed Metal Sites  (2008)
Doctoral advisorJeffrey R. Long
Other academic advisorsJeffrey Schwartz, Daniel G. Nocera
WebsiteLink
Figure 1: Ni-MFU‑4l: single-site heterogeneous catalyst.[1]

Mircea Dincă (born 1980) is a Romanian-American inorganic chemist. He is a Professor of Chemistry and W. M. Keck Professor of Energy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).[2] At MIT, Dincă leads a research group that focuses on the synthesis of functional metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), which possess conductive, catalytic, and other material-favorable properties.

Early life and education

Mircea Dincă was born in Făgăraș, Romania. His passion for chemistry began in his chemistry class in 7th grade, where he had a "dedicated teacher that did spectacular demonstrations with relatively limited regard for safety". In 1998, he represented Romania at the International Science Olympiad (Chemistry) in Yakutsk, Russia, where he won first prize.[3]

Figure 2: Selective dimerization of propylene to branched hexenes using Ni-MFU-4l.[4]

After high school, Dincă was offered a scholarship from Princeton University and moved to New Jersey in 1999. At Princeton, he worked with Jeffrey Schwartz, conducting research on materials science. After graduating magna cum laude in 2003, Dincă went on to the University of California, Berkeley to attend the Chemistry doctorate program, where he worked with chemistry professor Jeffrey R. Long on increasing H2 adsorption in metal-organic frameworks with mobile hydrogen storage applications. He graduated with his Ph.D. from Berkeley in 2008.[5]

Career

Dincă completed his postdoc studies at MIT, where he was promoted to associate professor in 2010 and, in 2017, tenured.[5]

Research

Dincă's research primarily focuses on electrical conductivity of MOF's, which was previously unknown and resulted in a new categorization of such materials with "charge mobility values".[6] His focus is on the exploration of increasing electrical conductivity capacities through the marriage of organic and inorganic materials to assemble hybrid MOF's.

Research includes exploring electrochemical cycling through strongly adhering, electroactive metal–organic framework thin films to vary results, such as multicolored electrochromic responses[7] and transparent to dark behavior.[8]

References

  1. ^ Metzger, Eric D.; Comito, Robert J.; Hendon, Christopher H.; Dincă, Mircea (2017-01-18). "Mechanism of Single-Site Molecule-Like Catalytic Ethylene Dimerization in Ni-MFU-4l". Journal of the American Chemical Society. 139 (2): 757–762. doi:10.1021/jacs.6b10300. hdl:1721.1/115117. ISSN 0002-7863. PMID 27966939. S2CID 207171617.
  2. ^ "Mircea Dincă – MIT Department of Chemistry". Retrieved 2021-05-14.
  3. ^ "Dinca Research Lab – About Mircea Dinca". web.mit.edu. Retrieved 2018-11-29.
  4. ^ Comito, Robert J.; Metzger, Eric D.; Wu, Zhenwei; Zhang, Guanghui; Hendon, Christopher H.; Miller, Jeffrey T.; Dincă, Mircea (2017-04-25). "Selective Dimerization of Propylene with Ni-MFU-4l". Organometallics. 36 (9): 1681–1683. doi:10.1021/acs.organomet.7b00178. hdl:1721.1/114955. ISSN 0276-7333. OSTI 1438891. S2CID 99542568.
  5. ^ a b "MIT Department of Chemistry – Dincă Research Lab". web.mit.edu. Retrieved 2018-11-29.
  6. ^ "Materials research earns chemistry professor 40th annual Alan T. Waterman Award | NSF – National Science Foundation". nsf.gov. Retrieved 2018-11-29.
  7. ^ Wade, Casey R.; Li, Minyuan; Dincă, Mircea (2013-10-16). "Facile Deposition of Multicolored Electrochromic Metal-Organic Framework Thin Films". Angewandte Chemie International Edition. 52 (50): 13377–13381. doi:10.1002/anie.201306162. ISSN 1433-7851. PMID 24133021.
  8. ^ Alkaabi, Khalid; Wade, Casey R.; Dincă, Mircea (2016-08-11). "Transparent-to-Dark Electrochromic Behavior in Naphthalene-Diimide-Based Mesoporous MOF-74 Analogs". Chem. 1 (2): 264–272. doi:10.1016/j.chempr.2016.06.013. hdl:1721.1/107566. ISSN 2451-9294.