Xiaodong Zou is a full professor and chair of the Inorganic and Structural Chemistry Unit at the Department of Materials and Environmental Chemistry, Stockholm University. She received her Bachelor of Science in Physics 1984 at Peking University and Master of Science in Metal Physics 1986 at Beijing University of Technology, under the supervision of Prof. K.H. Kuo. In 1987 she moved to Sweden to pursue her Ph.D. study and received her PhD in structural chemistry at Stockholm University in 1995. She carried out her postdoctoral research at Lund University, working with the Tage Erlander Professor David R. Veblen from John Hopkins University, USA. She joined the faculty at Stockholm University in 1996 and became professor 2005.

One of her main research interests is method development for accurate atomic structure determination of nano-sized crystals by electron crystallography. Her group has solved a number of complex structures of zeolites and mesoporous crystals by transmission electron microscopy. She is also working on synthesis, structure determination, topology analysis and applications of inorganic open-framework materials and metal-organic frameworks. In 2006, she received 100 MSEK from VR and VINNOVA to build up the Berzelii Center EXSELENT on Porous Materials and was the director 2006-2012. She has > 360 publications and 7 patents. Her group developed 10 software for quantitative analysis of high-resolution electron microscopy images and electron diffraction patterns. The software has been commecialized and used by > 200 laboratories.

She received several awards including Tage Erlander Prize for Science and Technology 2002 and Göran Gustafsson Prize in Chemistry 2008, both given by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the K.H. Kuo Award for Distinguished Scientist 2010 and the Arrhenius medal 2012 given by the Swedish Chemical Society.

She has been recongnised as a Wallenberg Scholar and Rådsprofessor of the Swedish Research Council.

She is appointed as a member of the Nobel Committee in Chemistry, an elected member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (KVA), member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA), Fellow of the Royal Chemical Society (FRCS), member of Structure Commission of International Zeolite Association and the main editor of Electron Crystallography section of IUCrJ.

2. Research

Xiaodong Zou’s research has been development of electron crystallographic methods. Her group has developed several image and diffraction-based methods and software for accurate atomic structure determination of unknown crystals, and solved many complex structures, especially porous materials such as zeolites and metal-organic frameworks. She is also an expert in porous materials and has been working on design, synthesis and applications of novel porous materials. Recently her research interests have been extended in developing electron crystallographic methods for structure determination of protein crystals.

3. On-going projects

Xiaodong Zou’s research projects cover several research topics, which are summarized below. 

Revealing atomic structures, charge states and molecular interactions in macromolecules by microcrystal electron diffraction. Swedish Research Council (VR), 2020-2030.

Electron crystallographic methods to probe 3D atomic structures and charge states in macromolecules. Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation (Wallenberg Scholars), 2020-2024. https://kaw.wallenberg.org/en/xiaodong-zou

Access to potent medical drugs (APIs) through crystallization enabled by ionic liquids (ILs) Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation (KAW) 2020-2026. 

The project team consists of Prof. Dr. Matias Edén, Prof. Alexander Lyubartsev, and Prof. Xiaodong Zou from department of Materials and Environmental Chemistry, SU and Prof. Belén Martín-Matute from Department of Organic Chemistry, SU.

Advanced high-throughput electron diffraction (HTED) methods for fast synthesis screening and accurate structure characterization of polycrystalline materials, KAW-WISE PhD project (https://wise-materials.org/), 2023-2028.

PhD student: Paul Hager

Electron Nanocrystallography (NanED), H2020-MSCA-ITN, 2021-2025.

PhD student: Angelina Vypritskaia

4. Publications

Recent publications

1. Y. Luo, B. Wang, S. Smeets, J. Sun, W. Yang, X. Zou, High-throughput phase elucidation of polycrystalline materials using serial rotation electron diffraction,Nat. C

   hem.

   2023,

   15

   , 483–490

2. C. Kang, Z. Zhang, S. Kusaka, K. Negita, A.K. Usadi, D.C. Calabro, L. S. Baugh, Y. Wang, X. Zou, Z. Huang, R. Matsuda, D. Zhao, Covalent Organic Framework Atropisomers with Multiple Gas-Triggered Structural Flexibilities, Nat. Mater, 2023, 22,

   636–643.

3. T. Yang, H. Xu, T. Willhammar, X. Zou, Z. Huang, Tutorial: Single-Crystal Structure Determination of Nano-Sized Metal-Organic Frameworks by Three-Dimensional Electron Diffraction, Nat. Protocol. 2022, 17, 2389-2413.

4. A. Korde, B. Min, E. Kapaca, O. Knio, Z. Wang, J. Leisen, X. Yin, X. Zhang, D.S. Sholl, X. Zou, T. Willhammar, C. W. Jones, S. Nair, Single-Walled Zeolitic Nanotubes, Science 2022, 375, 62-66.

5. Y. Luo, M.T.B. Clabbers, J. Qiao, Z. Yuan, W. Yang, X. Zou, Visualizing the entire range of noncovalent interactions in nanocrystalline hybrid material using 3D electron diffraction,

   J. Am. Chem. Soc.

   2022,

   144

   , 10817-10824.

6. L. Samperisi, A. Jaworski, G. Kaur, K. P. Lillerud, X. Zou, Z. Huang,

   Probing Molecular Motions in Metal–Organic Frameworks by Three-Dimensional Electron Diffraction,

   J. Am. Chem. Soc.

   2021,

   143

   , 17947-17952.

7. B. Wang, X. Zou, S. Smeets,

   Automated serial rotation electron diffraction combined with cluster analysis: an efficient multi-crystal workflow for structure determination, IUCrJ,

   2019

   ,6, 854-867

   .

8. P. Guo, J. Shin, A. Greenaway, J.G. Min, J. Su,

   H.J. Choi

   ,

   L.F. Liu, P.A. Cox, S.B. Hong, P.A. Wright, X. Zou,

   A zeolite family with expanding structural complexity and embedded isoreticular structures,

    Nature

    

   2015

   ,

    

   524

   , 74–78

   .

    

9. W. Wan, J.L. Sun, J. Su, S. Hovmöller, X.D. Zou “Three-dimensional rotation electron diffraction: software RED for automated data collection and data processing” J. App. Crystallogr

   .

   2013

   ,

   46

   ,

    1863-1873.

10. T. Willhammar, J.L. Sun, W. Wan, P. Oleynikov, D.L. Zhang, X.D. Zou, M. Moliner, J. Gonzalez, C. Martínez, F. Rey, A. Corma, Structure and catalytic properties of the most complex intergrown zeolite ITQ-39 determined by electron crystallography, Nat. Chem. 2012, 4 188-194.

Full list of publications is available from Diva and 

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=E8QKMYwAAAAJ&hl=en

5. Research Group members

Current members

Professor emeritus

Sven Hovmöller

Researchers

Taimin Yang, 2020-.

Rohit Kumar, 2023-.

Post docs

Gehard Hofer, 2020-.

Walter Wong, 2023-.

Huiqiu Wang, 2024-.

Yinlin Chen, 2024-.

PhD students

Jia Lv (2023)

Zheting Chu (2023)

Paul Hager (2023)

Angelina Vypritskaia (2022)

Sofiia Butonova (2022)

Bernadette Davies (2021),

Jiaoyan Xu (2020)

Laura Pascote (2020) 

Research assistent

Alexis Fonjallaz

Project student

Marcus Wallin

Collaborators at MMK

Hongyi (Justin) Xu

A Ken Inge

Tom Willhammar

Zhehao Huang

Former members

PhD students

Tony Conradsson, 2002. Liqiu Tang, 2005; Elkem, Norway; Kirsten E. Christensen, 2008, University of Oxford; Daliang Zhang, 2010, Jilin University, China; Mikaela Gustafsson, 2012, Sandvik Coromant, Sweden; Andrew Kentaro Inge, 2012, MMK, SU; Tom Willhammar 2013, MMK, SU. Yifeng Yun, 2014, Synfuels China, Beijing; Fabian Carson, 2015, Mycronic AB, Stockholm; Peng Guo, 2016, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences; Hani Nasser Abdelhamid, 2017, Assuit University, Egypt; Yunchen Wang, 2017, Sigma Technology, Sweden; Magdalena O. Cichocka, 2019, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands. Taimin Yang, 2019. Ning Yuan, 2019. Bin Wang, 2019. Elina Kapaca, 2020. Jingjing Zhao, 2021. Meng Ge, 2021. Laura Samperisi 2022. Viktor Bengtsson 2022. Molly Lightowler 2022, Jung Youn Cho 2023.

Postdocs

Thomas Weirich, 1997-1999. Kai Sun, 1998-2000. Zhimin Mo, 2000.  Guo-Yu Yang, 2001. Mauro Gemmi, 2001-2002. Markus Doeblinger, 2002. Yafeng Li, 2002-2004. Lesya Demchenko, 2005. Hong Zhang, 2004-2005. Tie-zhen Ren, 2005-2006. Lei Shi, 2005-2007. Zhanbing He, 2005-2007. Junliang Sun, 2007-2008. Charlotte Bonneau, 2007-2008. Mingrun Li, 2007-2009. Daniel Grüner, 2009. Huijuan Yue, 2007-2010. Lei Han, 2009-2010. Max Peskov, 2008-2011. Suman Sahoo, 2009-2011. Wei Wan, 2009-2011. Qingxia Yao, 2009-2013. Jie Su, 2010-2014. Ana Eva Pletero Prats, 2012-2014. Devinder Singh, 2012-2014. Changhong Xiao, 2013-2014. Ilich Ibarra, 2013-2014. Yi Zhang, 2013-2015. Changjiu Xia, 2014-2015. Haoquan Zheng, 2012-2016. Jiho Shin, 2015-2016. Diana Bernin, 2015. Hongyi Xu, 2014-2017; Stef Smeets, 2016-2018. Jonas Ångström, 2016-2018. Karl Gustafson, 2018-2019. Jian Li, 2019-2020. Max Clabber, 2018-2020. Maria Roslova, 2018-2021. Zhehao Huang, 2015-2021. Elina Kapaca, 2020-2022. Yi Luo, 2019-2023, Edward Broadhurst, 2021-2023.

6. Teaching activities                                                                           

Current teaching:

Electron microscopy for materials characterization, 7.5 ECTS (KZ7016)

Electron crystallography, 7.5 ETCS, PhD course

Advanced transmission electron microscopy, 7.5 ECTS, PhD course

Writing Science, 3 ECTs, PhD course

Past teaching:

Introduction to analytical electron microscopy, 7.5 ECTS (KZ8009)

Porous materials (2007-2010)