Homogeneous Catalysts for the Activation and Functionalization of Carbon Oxygen Sigma Bonds in Ethers from Biomass

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Society faces a monumental challenge in relinquishing its dependence on fossil fuels. While CO2 levels and the price of petroleum continue to rise, molecules from oil continue to dominate the landscape and fuel our chemical industries. As one approach to solving this crisis, many have promoted the concept of "The Biorefinery" and a new chemical sector dependent upon the sustainable natural resource biomass. Biomass is made up of a mixture of polymers which, when compared to petroleum and natural gas, contain a high ratio of elemental oxygen to elemental carbon. The elemental oxygen and carbon form strong carbon-oxygen bonds which present an obstacle for processing and transforming these chemicals into everyday products. In order for molecules from biorefineries to meet the growing and complex demands of Society, new methods will have to be developed that remove the elemental oxygen from renewable resources by breaking carbon-oxygen bonds.Our research centers around developing new underpinning methods for the transformation of carbon-oxygen bonds to carbon-carbon and carbon-nitrogen bond by activation with catalysts based on transition and main-group metals. By discovering and exploiting new catalyst systems we will uncover methods for turning ethers from biomass into chemical building blocks for chemical manufacture. Specifically, we will convert ethers into C1- to C9-hydrocarbon building blocks by breaking the unreactive C-O bonds and replacing them with reactive C-B and C-Al bonds. We will demonstrate the use of these building blocks in chemical manufacture.