Project description
Dancing to a different tune: sustainable and efficient catalytic methods
Synthetic chemists are sort of like choreographers, creating intricate and complex "dances" between molecules and molecular entities in which partners come together, change places, move away and often pass off their partners to another "dancer." Chemists are also matchmakers; many of these entities do not want to come together, and new ways must be found to reduce the "barriers" between them. At the heart of many of these dances are catalysts. The EU-funded HBPTC project is developing novel sustainable catalytic routes to high-value products such as pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals that are cost-effective and whose efficiencies rival those of less sustainable or more expensive processes.
Objective
The objective of the research described in this proposal is to develop a new mode of activation for catalysis leading to more sustainable catalytic processes using abundant feedstock materials. By merging hydrogen bonding and phase transfer catalysis, we propose that hydrogen bonding of an insoluble unreactive anionic nucleophile with a hydrogen bond donor catalyst will form a soluble and reactive entity now capable of carbon-nucleophile bond formation with concomitant release of the hydrogen bond donor catalyst. This activation mode is applicable to nucleophiles as simple as feedstock inorganic salts enabling challenging asymmetric bond-forming reactions in a general and predictable fashion. Inexpensive lost nucleophiles currently unusable due to poor solubility and reactivity will be reclaimed as effective reagents for asymmetric catalysis. Common inorganic salts such as sodium chloride or potassium fluoride will be transformed into high-value products such as complex pharmaceutical and agrochemical products applying operationally simple and cost effective protocols. Synergistic catalysis whereby hydrogen bonding phase transfer catalysis will work in concert with an additional catalytic cycle will be implemented to introduce new chemical transformations with these feedstock reagents, improve efficiency, and create catalytic enantioselectivity where stereocontrol is absent or challenging. This research will require the development of high performance catalysts and the understanding of catalytic mechanisms applying structural, kinetics, and computational studies. HBPTC is expected to expand the field of catalysis, and rival the efficiency of some of the most active metal, organocatalyst and biocatalyst known to date.
Fields of science
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Funding Scheme
ERC-ADG - Advanced GrantHost institution
OX1 2JD Oxford
United Kingdom