Boris ŽEMVA

My main research interests are inorganic fluorine chemistry, high energy oxidizers and coordination compounds with noble gas fluorides as ligands to the naked metal centre. In the field of high energy oxidizers we synthesized and characterized a whole set of new binary fluorides: NiF4, NiF3, Ni2F5, AgF3, Ag2F5 and CuF3 which are all able to oxidize xenon or oxygen gas. In the compounds of the type Mn+(AF6¯)n where M is a metal in the oxidation state n and AF5 is a Lewis acid. The metal centres are practically naked because of the relatively big anions. The fluorides of xenon, especially XeF2, can act as ligands to these metals forming coordination compounds of the type [Mn+(XeF2)p](AF6¯)n where p is the number of XeF2 molecules attached to the central atom. For the firm BASF from Ludwigshafen in Germany the fluorination procedure for fuel tanks made from HDPE was developed in order to minimize the permeability of the fuel mixed with methanol. The procedure was patented in 43 countries all over the world.

Generalized scheme for acid – base dependence of the formation of cations, binary fluorides and complex anions. The examples of the photochemical reaction between silver and elemental fluorine in acidic anhydrous hydrogen fluoride (aHF) and in basic aHF are given.

1971 PhD in inorganic chemistry, University of Ljubljana

1983 Bachelor’s degree in Economics, University of Maribor

1985 Full Prof., University of Ljubljana

1972–1973 Postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley

1993 Visiting Miller Professor at Berkeley

1997 Visiting Professor at the Institut de Chimie de la Matiére Condensée de Bordeaux, France

1995 Chairman of the 11th European Symposium on Fluorine Chemistry, Bled.

Important Works

B. Žemva et al., Silver Trifluoride : Preparation, Crystal Structure, Some Properties, JACS ,1991, 113, 4192-4198.

B. Žemva et al., Thermodynamically Unstable Fluorides of Nickel : NiF4 and NiF3, JACS, 1995, 117, 10025-10034.

K. Radan, E. Goreshnik, B. Žemva, Xenon(II)Polyfluoridotitanates(IV), Synthesis and Structural Characterization of [Xe2F3]+ and [XeF]+ Salts, Angewandte Chem. 2014, 53, 13715-13719.

Selected Awards

1989 nagrada B. Kidriča za izjemne dosežke ǀ B. Kidrič Award for exceptional achievements

1999 raziskovalna nagrada A. von Humboldt ǀ A. von Humboldt Research Award

2001 ambasador za znanost ǀ Ambassador of Science

2006 nagrada ACS za kreativno delo ǀ ACS Award for creative work

2011 Zoisova nagrada za življenjsko delo ǀ Zois Award for lifetime achievements

2012 izvoljen za mentorja leta ǀ Elected for mentor of the year