Prof Bernard Omondi Owaga heads the Structural Chemistry Group at the Westville campus of the University of KwaZulu-Natal (from April 2011). He holds a BSc, MSc, and PhD in Chemistry from the University of the Witwatersrand.
Prof Owaga’s Research is on synthetic coordination chemistry of transition metal complexes, biological studies, and catalysis involving the coordination complexes. In this research, they take advantage of their vast knowledge in single crystal analysis of the coordination complexes in unequivocally establishing their structures. This is in addition to all the other spectroscopic and analytical characterization techniques.
One of the current biological studies project is based on the use of biologically active ligands (mainly, derivatives of pyridines, quinolines, pyrimidines and formamidines) incorporating Ag(I), Zn(II), Cu(I) and Cu(II), and Ru(II) centers in their complexes. The catalysis is mainly homogeneous focussing on the Ring Opening Polymerization reactions of cyclic esters using coordination complexes of Zn, Al, Mg and Cu.
Professor
Chemistry
owaga@ukzn.ac.za
031 260 8127
