With this award, the Chemical Catalysis Program in the Chemistry Division is funding Dr. Tomislav Pintauer from Duquesne University to develop new methods to produce pharmaceuticals and other useful chemicals in an environmentally sound fashion. The new methods use catalysts formed from copper instead of the more commonly-used ones that contain mercury or other toxic metals. Their work is helping to expand the range of conditions where these copper catalysts can be used so that environmentally benign agents that do not generate free radicals, such as Vitamin C, can be used. Their new method is appealing because very low concentrations of metal are required, further reducing the environmental footprint while still providing society with useful chemicals such as drugs. The work is having a broader impact through the development of new courses at Duquesne University on green catalysis and other topics. The research team is further broadening the impact of their work by including and mentoring under-represented minority and economically disadvantaged high school students from the Pittsburgh area in their research program.
This research is focused on developing highly active copper catalysts for atom transfer radical addition (ATRA) reactions involving monohalogenated substrates, as well as cyclization (ATRC) reactions leading to the formation of synthetically useful lactones. Both of these methods have shown great potential for mediating C-C bond formation utilizing a variety of alkyl halides and alkenes. Currently, there is no known catalyst with an acceptable level of activity for both of these transformations, so the work is filling an important void. The main focus of the project is specifically tailored ligand design, with special emphasis on structural and mechanistic understanding of the carbon-halogen bond activation catalyzed by copper complexes.
