General Methods for Catalyst Discovery

北卡罗来纳大学教堂山分校化学学部的启动基金资助了James P. Morken教授的研究。本研究旨在开发一种通过组合合成技术发现催化剂的通用方法。一种新的红外热成像技术被用来同时评估每个催化剂，在一个大分子库中，以促进感兴趣的反应的能力。后续实验探讨了复杂金属配体文库产生新型化学转化催化剂的能力，以及热像分析阐明外消旋起始物质动力学分解的有效手性催化剂的能力。应用这项研究中的技术可能会发现具有新的、可能更有效的反应模式的新型催化剂。随着对新型催化剂反应性的研究，人们对化学反应性的基本认识得到了提高。

This starter grant award of the Chemistry Division to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill supports the research of Professor James P. Morken. The research aims to develop a general method for catalyst discovery through combinatorial synthetic techniques. A new technique in infrared thermographic imaging is used to evaluate simultaneously each catalyst, in a large molecular library, for the ability to promote a reaction of interest. Follow-on experiments address the ability of complex metal-ligand libraries to yield catalysts for novel chemical transformations and the ability of the thermographic assay to elucidate effective chiral catalysts for the kinetic resolution of racemic starting materials. Application of the technique featured in this research may enable discovery of new classes of catalysts with new, and possibly more effective, modes of reactivity. As the reactivity of new catalysts is investigated, the fundamental understanding of chemical reactivity is advanced.