CAS: Photochemistry of spatially confined organic molecules

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With the support of the Macromolecular, Supramolecular and Nanochemistry Program in the Division of Chemistry, Prof. Vaidhyanathan Ramamurthy of University of Miami, taking the cue from nature, aims to find ways to control the behavior of light activated molecules by confining them in cavities that are just slightly larger than them. With the current emphasis on sustainability and safety, his undertaking will use light as the energy source and water as the solvent. The long term goal is to find efficient ways to capture and store the inexhaustible solar energy into chemical energy. This interdisciplinary research project, which involves US and international collaborations, provides a unique platform for training graduate students on different aspects of light activated chemistry. Recognizing the importance of making the young researchers aware of the pathways involved in developing new science, Prof. Ramamurthy will present lectures in an open forum titled ‘Being a Scientist’ that include information on the roles of a discoverer and the time-line of the discoveries along with contextual placement of the concepts. He will continue to organize weekly online informal lecturers by active research scientists that have already proven to be of great value to students and young researchers working at smaller and underprivileged Institutions all over the world.The main goal of this research project is to find ways to perform useful and selective reactions under sustainable conditions without involving toxic reagents and solvents. This study employing light as the energy source and water as the solvent integrates supramolecular principles. Water-soluble synthetic hosts with cavity dimensions of a few angstroms will be utilized as reaction containers for organic molecules that are not water-soluble. The overarching goal of this program is to finding conditions under which light activated reactions that would yield high-value products could be carried out in a selective, sustainable and catalytic fashion. The reactions to be explored would include synthetically useful and mechanistically interesting addition, electron- and proton transfer initiated transformations, fragmentation reactions, oxidations etc. To get an insight into the above processes mechanistic studies that include ultrafast spectroscopic experiments and theoretical calculations will be performed.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.