Developing new cooperative strategies for catalysis, or dreaming about it
NaMeS students are invited to IPC PAS Seminar within Dream Chemistry Lecture Series delivered by:
Dr. Jesús Campos
Institute for Chemical Research (IIQ),
CSIC-University of Sevilla, Spain
Thursday, 7th March, 2019, 10.00
Assembly hall of the IPC PAS
Abstract
In the early 80s Chisholm proposed that “all the types of reactions which have been studied for mononuclear transition metal complexes will also occur for dinuclear transition metal complexes”. Almost 40 years later, continued research on the area of bimetallic systems has proven that claimed and gone beyond, even exploiting the chemistry of many polymetallic and cluster species. Regarding catalytic applications, there are many important transformations that require the concerted action of pairs of active metal sites, paralleling what is often found in metalloenzymes. This fertile area of research inspired us to start investigating less explored concepts in the field of cooperative chemistry with the aim of developing novel catalytic applications. In one of our approaches, we focused on late-transition bimetallic systems characterized by the use of sterically hindered phosphine ligands containing a terphenyl (2,6-C6H3-Ar2) substituent. We now can tune the formation of M-M bonds versus M···M frustration with interesting outcomes in terms of reactivity. In a related approach and within a dreaming standpoint we have also tried to develop cooperative molecular materials that rely on Coulombic forces to produce heterogeneized catalysts. The two strategies, namely our future dreaming chemistry and also our down-to-Earth results on bimetallic pairs will be discussed.
