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Our research interests are focused on two areas, 1) Electrochemical detection of peroxynitrite (PON) using aryl selenide-decorated electrodes. Sensitive and quantitative detection of PON is of great value to investigations of the critical roles of PON in health and disease. Our initial investigation showed that diary selenides grafted on graphite electrodes act as efficient catalytic mediators for the oxidative detection of PON in solution. Our current efforts are now directed towards detection sensitivity optimization by studying the substituents electronic effects in the aryl selenides on various electrodes. 2) The synthesis of heterocyclic compounds with potential applications in the fields of pharmaceuticals and material sciences.  Nitrogen, oxygen and sulfur heterocyclic compounds are key building blocks in medicinally and biologically active compounds.  They are predominant among all types of pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals products.  Heterocyclic compounds also have many industrial uses as components in dyes, antioxidants, copolymers, bases, and ligands.  Both conventional and microwave assisted synthetic techniques are adopted in our research.  We have developed an efficient microwave assisted synthesis of fused triazolo-benzopyidoxazepines for biological testing.  Another area of interest is the syntheis of heterocyclic superamolecular compounds as liquid crystals, organic semiconductors and organic gelators.  The structure of many heterocyclic compounds permits their self assembly and aggregations via possible intermolecular hydrogen bonding, π-stacking, and metal coordination, making them attractive tunable optical and electronic targets.  Students in our laboratory will have the opportunity to learn and practice organic synthesis, structure elucidation and physical measurements.

Selected Publications

1. Fouad, F. S., Khairuddean, M., & Twieg, R. J. (2022). Diphenyl-1, 3, 4-oxadiazoles: synthesis and influence of side chain semifluorination and lateral ring fluorination on liquid crystalline properties. Molecular Crystals and Liquid Crystals, 732(1), 64-75.
2. Bayachou, M., Kalil, H., Fouad, F., Azeroual, S., & Bose, T. (2021). Bottom‐up Design of a Grafted Organic Selenide Interface for Sensitive Electrocatalytic Detection of Peroxynitrite. .
3. Fouad, F., Khairuddean, M., & Twieg, R. (2021). Synthesis and liquid crystalline studies of biphenylyl-1, 3, 4-thiadiazoles and diphenyl-1, 3, 4-thiadiazoles: influence of side chain semifluorination and lateral ring fluorination. Liquid Crystals, 48(12), 1758-1768.
4. Fouad, F., Ness, T., Wang, K., Ruth, C. E., Britton, S., & Twieg, R. J. (2019). Biphenylyl-1, 2, 4-oxadiazole based liquid crystals–synthesis, mesomorphism, effect of lateral monofluorination. .
5. Fouad, F., Khabouchi, F., Nielsen, A., & Twieg, R. (2018). Mesogenic 3, 6-bis (4-hydroxyphenyl)-1, 2, 4, 5-tetrazine alkanoate esters. .
6. Fouad, F., Davis, D. R., & Twieg, R. (2018). 2-(4-Biphenylyl)-1, 3, 4-oxadiazoles: synthesis and mesogenic studies. .
7. Nadeesha Ranasinghe, Enrico Mongeau, Gengyang Yuan, Zachary Minden, Scott Waldron, Christopher Patrick Jr., Farid Fouad, Sabiha Kappera, and Graham B. Jones. (2017). Flow and Microwave Induced Pellizzari Reactions: Synthesis of Heterocyclic Analogues of the Benzoxazepine Antipsychotic Agents Loxapine and JL-13. .