Louis Van Nyvel

Louis obtained his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in chemistry at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). Both his dissertations were supervised by Prof. Mercedes Alonso. As part of his training, he completed a 4-month internship at the Universitat de Girona (UdG) under the supervision of Prof. Miquel Solà where he investigated the effect of size, charge, and spin state on Hückel and Baird aromaticity in [N]annulenes.

In 2025, Louis was awarded a Fundamental Research grant from the FWO. His PhD is a joint collaboration between the VUB and UdG under the supervision of Prof. Mercedes Alonso, Prof. Frank De Proft, and Prof. Miquel Solà. With this project he aims to develop a novel conceptual framework to identify operative singlet fission chromophores with enhanced stability through a synergistic strategy combining the concept of ground- and excited-state aromaticity and conceptual DFT (CDFT) descriptors to fine-tune the excited-state energy levels and stability of organic compounds. 

Louis’ further research interests are focussed on diradical character and single-molecular conductance.

Selected Publications

L. Van Nyvel,  M. Alonso, M. Solà, Effect of size, charge, and spin state on Hückel and Baird aromaticity in [N]annulenes, Chem. Sci. 2025, 16, 5613-5622. doi:10.1039/D4SC08225G

L. Van Nyvel, I. Casademont-Reig, J. Eeckhoudt, S. M. Quintero, F. De Proft, P. Geerlings, M. Alonso, Interplay between diradical character, aromaticity and conductance in oligothiophenes, Chem. Sci. 2026, 17, 5125-5144. doi: 10.1039/D5SC05918F

S. M. Quintero, L. Van Nyvel, N. Roig, J. Casado, M. Alonso, Electron Transport through Linear‑, Broken‑, and Cross-Conjugated Polycyclic Compounds, J. Phys. Chem. A 2024, 128, 6140-6157. doi:10.1021/acs.jpca.4c01588