Expanding the Boundaries in Main Group Chemistry: New Boranes for Novel Reactivity

该研究项目旨在利用PI在硼化合物开发中的主基团化学方面的丰富专业知识，从而推动广泛的重要（催化）化学转化，以开发关键的有机构建模块。这些发展将有可能直接影响重大的社会问题；能源，绿色化学和健康。我们的日常生活严重依赖高科技有机材料，无论是我们日常的技术需求，如有机发光二极管（如手机显示屏）和有机场效应晶体管，还是用于治疗癌症或其他慢性疾病的下一代设计药物。随着寻求改善医疗保健和技术的发展中国家的不断出现，全球对这类特殊材料的需求可能呈指数级增长，从而增加了确定和利用节能生产方法的压力。与此同时，不断增加的能源成本使我们面对一个新的现实，即随着消费品价格的继续上涨，我们目前的生活水平可能会恶化。为了解决这些问题，必须查明替代能源，必须寻求新的能源/成本效益高的方法，以满足全球需求，同时尽量减少对环境的影响。与此相关，催化剂有助于通过较低的能量途径将较便宜的散装化学品转化为更高价值的产品，同时在反应结束时本身保持不变。然而，许多催化剂是基于稀有和昂贵的“贵金属”（例如Pd， Pt, Ir），其供应有限。成功开发替代催化剂是未来十年全球面临的最大挑战之一，也是一个极具吸引力的研究领域。最近，在“主群”化学中出现了一种复兴，用于生成催化的替代系统。这有可能成为传统金属催化工业过程的成本较低、环境友好和可持续的替代方法。该计划旨在利用硼在催化加氢反应中的反应活性，这是目前学术界和工业界最有用的反应之一，主要是贵金属催化剂。这种反应对全球经济和可持续化学非常重要。此外，含硼分子已被证明在有机合成和精细化学品（药品）、有机电子、农用化学品等的制造和生产方面具有广泛的应用。有机硼烷的使用对新化合物的分子组装产生了巨大的影响，例如形成新的碳-碳键（交叉偶联反应），并使铃木明（Akira Suzuki）因“有机合成中钯催化的交叉偶联”而获得2010年诺贝尔化学奖。然而，新的、清洁的、能源/原子高效的方法来制造有机硼烷用于成键反应仍然是需要的。在本提案中开发的硼化合物也将在合成转化中进行测试，以开发创新的途径，在单一步骤中获得有机硼试剂和复杂的有机化合物。

This research program aims to exploit the PI's vast expertise in main group chemistry in the development of boron compounds, and thus drive a broad range of important (catalytic) chemical transformations to develop key organic building blocks. Such developments will have the potential to impact directly on major societal issues; Energy, Green Chemistry and Health.Our everyday lives are heavily reliant on hi-tech organic materials, whether these be for our day-to-day technological needs such as organic light emitting diodes (e.g. in mobile phone displays) and organic field effect transistors, or for next-generation designer drugs to treat cancer or other chronic illnesses. With the continuing emergence of Developing Countries seeking both improved healthcare and technology, global demand for such specialty materials is likely to rise exponentially, thus increasing the pressure to identify and utilise energy efficient production methods. At the same time, increasing energy costs have led us to face the new reality of a potential deterioration in our current standard of living as the price of consumer goods continues to rise. In order to combat such issues, alternative energy sources must be identified and new energy/cost-efficient methods must be sought to meet global demand while minimising the environmental impact.Relating to this, catalysts assist in converting cheaper bulk chemicals to higher value products via lower energy pathways whilst themselves remaining unchanged at the end of the reaction. However, many catalysts are based on rare and expensive 'precious metals' (e.g. Pd, Pt, Ir) whose supply is limited. The successful development of alternative catalysts is one of the largest global challenges for the next decade and is a highly attractive field of research. Recently, there has been a renaissance in 'main group' chemistry for the generation of alternative systems for catalysis. This has the potential to serve as a lower cost, environmentally friendly and sustainable alternative to traditional metal-catalysed industrial processes. This program aims to exploit the reactivity of boron in catalytic hydrogenation reactions, one of the most useful reactions in academia and industry that is currently dominated by precious metal catalysts. Such reactions are highly important to the global economy and to sustainable chemistry.In addition, boron containing molecules have been shown to have profound applications in organic synthesis and in the manufacture and production of fine chemicals (pharmaceuticals), organic electronics, agrochemicals inter alia. The use of organoboranes has had a huge impact on the molecular assembly of new compounds such as in the formation of new carbon-carbon bonds (cross-coupling reactions), and led to Akira Suzuki sharing the 2010 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for "palladium-catalysed cross couplings in organic synthesis". Yet new, clean and energy/atom-efficient methods to create organoboranes for applications in bond forming reactions are still desirable. The boron compounds developed in this proposal will also be tested in synthetic transformations to develop innovative routes to access organoboron reagents and complex organic compounds in a single step.