“The true delight is in the finding out rather than in the knowing.”

First of all to my ex-girlfriend (a.k.a. wife) Ilaria who is always encouraging and supporting me in almost everything I am doing. She is following me in the foolish idea of doing research somewhere else in the world. A huge thanks to my Ph.D. supervisor Prof. Dr. Ulrich Lüning, in these three years I learned more than I expected. I have learned great lessons not only in chemistry but also in “real ” life. It will be hard to find another kind supervisor like him. Thanks to Angelika Merten who took care of burEaUcracy on my behalf. That was not an easy job. A sincere thanks to all the working group. The passage from Italy to Germany was not so traumatic as I thought, mainly thanks to the kindness of all of them. In these three years I met very good friends. There are too many reasons to thanks Frank Schleef that I should write another three theses only to have three new pages for acknowledging him. Thanks to Tim (Mario) Reimers for his friendship, for the nice music selection during the lab time, funny going out in the night and for finding almost all the typos. Thanks to all the chemists that worked and are working in the lab 31