Project description
Brains beat brawn
The rational design of new molecules for applications, from energy to medicine and beyond, often faces a bottleneck in nature's unwillingness to have the reactions proceed. Scientists may know which atoms they want where, as well as the chemical building blocks available to disassemble and reassemble molecules like Legos. However, strong bonds between two atoms can be hard to break, making it difficult to remove an atom or group of atoms and add another in its place. The EU-funded PUSH-IT project is developing a novel route for the activation and functionalisation of strong bonds in a sustainable way, a key to unlocking the door to a new era of innovation in synthetic chemistry for many applications.
Objective
PUSH-IT aims to establish charge-separation within formal multiple bonds as a concept for the activation of strong bonds in redox catalysis. The project is motivated by sustainable chemistry and displays a bottom-up approach for new methods relevant for chemical synthesis as well as chemical energy conversion and storage.
Inspired by heterogeneous catalysis, we will “push electrons” through formal multiple bonds and translate new principles from main-group chemistry to metals, which readily change oxidation states. We propose these charge-separated, vicinal zwitterions as the “activated” key intermediates for the functionalization of strong bonds (C–C, C–H, C–O, N–H and O–H). Importantly, we anticipate complementary and hence hitherto elusive chemo- and regiodiscrimination to the state of the art due to the unprecedented nucleophilicity of these compounds. The targeted applications include both fine- and bulk chemical synthesis.
The interdisciplinary project focuses on coordination chemistry and combines inorganic and organic synthesis with catalysis and advanced spectroscopy. High-end computational design will guide all experiments. More specifically, hitherto unknown vicinal zwitterions of an earth-abundant alkaline earth metal (magnesium), late transition metals (palladium, platinum, gold), and a non-toxic heavy p-block element (bismuth) with carbon (terminal carbides), nitrogen (terminal imides) and oxygen (terminal oxides) atoms will be isolated using innovative and novel synthetic approaches. With these new and exciting molecular coordination compounds in hand, we will establish the stoichiometric activation and functionalization of strong bonds and will develop catalytic redox cycles.
Overall, this research project will introduce a novel mechanism for bond activation in catalysis, which will allow us to understand elementary steps on heterogeneous surfaces as well as invent new chemical transformations in homogeneous reaction media.
Fields of science
- natural scienceschemical sciencesinorganic chemistryinorganic compounds
- natural scienceschemical sciencesinorganic chemistrytransition metals
- natural scienceschemical sciencesinorganic chemistryalkaline earth metals
- natural scienceschemical sciencesinorganic chemistrypost-transition metals
- natural scienceschemical sciencescatalysis
Keywords
Programme(s)
Topic(s)
Funding Scheme
ERC-STG - Starting GrantHost institution
66123 Saarbrucken
Germany