History

History

The free radical group started its activity at the University of Bologna in 1988 under the supervision ofProf. Gian Franco Pedulli. The EPR lab was settled at the site of the Department of Organic Chemistry “A Mangini” located at the Faculty of Pharmacy in Via San Donato (see lab). In 2005 the lab moved to the actual site in Via San Giacomo 11 (new lab). After Prof. Pedulli retirement in 2010, Marco Lucarini became the group coordinator. In 2012 as a consequence of the reorganization of the University of Bologna, the group joined the Department of Chemistry “G. Ciamician”. Since its beginning in 1988, the activity of the group was mainly devoted to the study of the properties and the reactivity of organic free radicals by using EPR spectroscopy. A very active research fields were represented by the determination of the parameters responsible of antioxidant activity of natural and synthetic antioxidants. The development of synthetic procedure based on free radicals avoiding highly toxic tin derivatives, the use of ESR imaging for the determination of radicals distribution in 3D polymeric samples. As an attestation of the good international reputation of the group in the field of free radicals in 1996 Prof. Pedulli (with prof. F. Minisci) chaired the VIIInternational Symposium on Organic Free Radicals. 

... In the last years the group has moved its interests to the preparation of paramagnetic supramolecular architectures that make possible the use of EPR spectroscopy for their investigation.