Catalytic Regioselective Functionalization of Alkane and Arenes

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This research award in the Inorganic, Bioinorganic and Organometallic Chemistry program supports work by Professor John F. Hartwig at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to develop reactions at typically unreactive C-H bonds. This work will create new methods to prepare organic molecules by selective chemical transformations at positions that are inert to most reagents. Complexes containing bonds between transition metals and boron catalyze these reactions, and this grant will reveal the properties of the transition metal that lead to this unusual reactivity. The reactions catalyzed by these complexes have been and will continue to be applied to the synthesis of polymers containing new properties, organic molecules with enhanced abilities to emit light, components of catalysts for other reactions, and organic probes for understanding biological systems. Work emanating from the proposed research is part of new curricula for the classroom, short-courses, many external lectures, and a major textbook project that will be completed in the next grant period by the PI.This research will lead to new methods to conduct chemical synthesis in fewer steps, with less waste, and with less reliance on the installation and protection of functional groups. In addition, this research creates the underlying principles on which future design of catalysts and processes for more efficient synthesis are based. Studies to define how the electronic properties of the metal and how electrophilic or nucleophilic properties of the reactive ligand affect C-H bond cleavage and functionalization will create these principles.