On April 18^th of 2019, Prof. Alexander A. Trifonov, director of the Institute of Organoelement Compounds of the Russian Academy of Sciences, paid visit to the SKLEOC by invitation of Prof. Chunming Cui, director of the SKLEOC. In addition to academic communications with different faculties, he gave a talk entitled “Lanthanide Alkyl Complexes: How to Gain Thermal Stability Maintaining Reactivity”.  

    During the speech, Prof. Trifonov first introduced the history and properties of rare earth metals. He then went on to demonstrate his group’s studies on the synthesis and reactivities of low coordinated rare earth metal complexes, and highly efficient hydrophosphoration of alkenes catalyzed by NHC-stabilized rare earth metal amido complexes. The lecture was inspiring, and ended by an enthusiastic discussion on the details of the presented chemistry.    

    Prof. Trifonov received his bachelor’s degree in 1984 from Gorky State University (USSR), and obtained his Ph.D. at the Institute of Organoelement Compounds of Russian Academy of Sciences in 1989. He then conducted postdoctoral studies at the Technical University of Berlin and Université de Paris-Sud. From 1999-2000 he was an A. von Humboldt fellow in the research group of Prof. J. Okuda. In 2005 he became head of the laboratory of coordination chemistry and in the same year was also appointed professor at the Nizhny Novgorod State University. Since 2018 he has become director of the Institute of Organoelement Compounds of the Russian Academy of Sciences.