This project, funded by the Chemical Catalysis Program of NSF Division of Chemistry, to Professor Vladimir Gevorgyan of the University of Illinois at Chicago examines the replacement of rare and expensive palladium, rhodium, and iridium catalysts with abundant and cheap iron and copper complexes (homogeneous catalysts). The research team develops new methodologies involving nanoporous metal skeletons (heterogeneous catalysis) and develops highly valuable synthetic methodologies by taking advantage of low catalyst loadings, low catalyst leaching, and high catalyst recyclability. The research project includes the development of iron-catalyzed Heck-type coupling and Wacker oxidation methodologies, as replacements for classical methods employing expensive and toxic palladium catalysts. The research also includes examination of oxidative iron-catalyzed carbon (C)-hydrogen (H)/C-H coupling reactions toward complex polycyclic molecules. Copper catalysts are studied for diverse C-H functionalizations as well as the dehydrogenative carboxylations of fused lactones.
This project is performed in collaboration with Professor Yoshinori Yamamoto of the Dalian University of Technology in Dalian, China and Professor Hans-Joachim Knölker of the Technical University of Dresden, in Dresden, Germany. Together, these three groups combine their separate areas of expertise to provide novel and sustainable catalytic methods for more straightforward and environmentally-benign pathways toward valuable synthons for synthetic and medicinal chemistry and material science. The broader impacts of this work also include leadership training for graduate students and an international exchange of ideas and expertise.
