Novel robust catalysts are key to improve the efficiency and reduce the environmental impact of industrial processes, which provide crucial chemical intermediates/products in modern society. In particular, asymmetric catalysis (AC) is regarded as the most important approach to synthesize enantiomerically pure compounds, which have attracted intense interest from industry and academia. For example, a catalytic asymmetric synthesis of Remdesivir as one of the anti-COVID-19 drug was reported, in which a chiral bicyclic imidazole catalyst played a key role in the chiral induction. Besides this, prominent anti-inflammatory drugs, Ibuprofen and Naproxen, were also successfully synthesized via asymmetric hydroformylation (AHF)/oxidation or asymmetric hydrogenation. These compounds are indispensable intermediates of pharmaceuticals, natural products, and fine chemicals in modern society.
However, the development of catalysts is traditionally a time-consuming step because it requires synthesizing and testing a large number of systems. The main benefit of this project is to revolutionize the synthesis of novel catalysts via a supramolecular strategy that consists in mixing two or three building blocks (taken from a vast library) that self-assemble to form the catalyst. In this way catalyst optimization is vastly facilitated.
More specifically, the aim of the SupraCopCat project is to provide new asymmetric cooperative catalysts, by anchoring different catalytic functions (such as dimethylaminopyridine and thiourea) at the periphery of a supramolecular helix and test them in various enantioselective catalytic reactions.
