The SeMPliCe Lab (Laboratory of Structural Chemistry and Molecular Properties) is responsible for designing and characterizing, from a structural, morphological, chemical and thermodynamic point of view, different classes of compounds and materials and their properties. The experimental techniques used range from X-ray diffraction, single crystal and micro-crystalline powders to microtomography, fluorescence analysis and elemental chemical analysis, flanked by computational studies using various molecular modeling techniques (empirical, semi-empirical and quantum-mechanical calculations). The laboratory has access to the instrumentation at the Crystallography Centre of the University of Florence (CRIST, www.crist.unifi.it), one of the most important centres in Italy in terms of instrumental equipment.
The lab also deals with molecular modelling, aimed both at the design of new compounds (and/or material precursors) with desired properties, and at the identification of information / parameters of a geometric and/or electronic nature to be used to rationalize the chemical/physical properties and reactivity of the chemical species studied.
