When NC State student Eric Alexy was working for neighbor back in high school, little did he know the experience would mark the beginning of his chemistry career. Now a senior studying chemistry, Alexy recently published a paper focused on a series of molecules he synthesized. 

Alexy said that this neighbor, who was in industrial chemistry, sparked his interest in the field. Starting his freshman year, Alexy started working in a lab with his advisor Jonathan Lindsey, a professor in chemistry. 

Alexy and Lindsey focus on groups of molecules called porphyrins, which according to Alexy are found within any type of photosynthetic plant. According to Alexy, the research, funded by the department of solar sciences, is designed to understand what happens in solar harvesting systems.

“The more absorption we get of light, the more energy you get,” Alexy said. “We are trying to broaden out how much light is absorbed. We’ve achieved broad absorption in a single molecule.” 

Alexy said the lab has been working on the specific group of molecules for 15 to 20 years.  

“The last set we worked with absorbed lights across the whole visible spectrum, which was quite unique,” Alexy said. 

Alexy said that the paper is short and only hits on the highlights of the molecules and what makes them interesting. While it does not go into extreme detail about the intricate measurements they have taken of the molecules, Alexy said he does plan on writing a more in-depth paper sometime in the future. 

Several other projects have branched off of his research, Alexy said. In order to acquire a more detailed analysis of the molecules Alexy synthesized, he and Lindsey reached out to Elena Jakubikova, an assistant professor in chemistry. 

“Our research started by the results that Eric obtained,” Jakubikova said. “Eric synthesized these molecules and mentioned their properties. What we’ve found is that there is a lot of flexibility in these molecules.”   

Jakubikova is now collaborating with graduate student Judah High and undergraduate Kyle Virgil on continuing Alexy’s research. 

“What they (Eric and his team) were attempting to do was create molecules that absorb well in all areas of the visible spectrum,” High said. “The whole purpose of making these is to absorb light. They were excited but the question was ‘why are they doing this?’ We started by looking at the porphyrin by itself.” 

Jakubikova said that she, High and Virgil got involved with this project about a year ago. According to Alexy, it took him about seven to eight months to synthesize the five main molecules which are highlighted in his paper. 

In terms of synthesizing the molecules, Alexy said that he and his team start by buying simple starting materials. Then they buy reactions, or routes of transformations, and build up complexity of the molecules through the series of reactions. He said it tends to be a very long process.

Regarding the progress Alexy and his team have made, he said there is still room for further research. 

“We can do a lot with organic synthesis, but we want to do more, and I want to research the complexities of organic synthesis and developing new reactions and just being able to make more,” Alexy said. “If we can come up with some kind of computational method, we can have a more targeted approach to our synthetic work.” 

Alexy said he plans to attend graduate school and continue his research. 

“If you told me in high school that I would be working in a lab, I wouldn’t believe you,” Alexy said.