Sustainable Access to Chiral Organophosphorus Compounds

项目背景(确定问题及其对可持续性的重要性和相关性)磷原子存在于对我们日常生活至关重要的各种药物、农用化学品和催化剂中。这些原子通常占据特定的几何形状，这可能是选择性合成的挑战。近年来，人们不仅对生产这些化学品的工艺的商业可行性进行了审查，还对它们对环境的影响进行了审查。不幸的是，磷化学在这方面是很有问题的：大多数磷化合物最终来自磷矿，磷矿首先在一个非常耗能的过程中转化为白磷，然后再转化为更高级的积木。化学工业中使用的一种主要的磷基块是三氯化磷。这种化合物是由白磷和氯气(这两种气体都是化学武器)直接合成的。由于化合物的毒性和作为化学武器前体的地位，依赖PCl3作为起始材料是一种不受欢迎的情况。减轻我们对这种有问题的试剂的依赖将是非常可取的，也是本项目寻求实现的目标。这将包括开发新的合成方法以及改进现有的方法。建议的解决方案和方法我们建议的解决方案是使用基于较高氧化态的磷的稳定前驱体。我们将开发基于自然可用分子的催化方法来控制磷的几何构型，因为新的基团的引入，以及构建单元的复杂性增加。

Project background (identification of the problem and its importance and relevance to sustainability) Phosphorus atoms are found in a variety drugs, agrochemicals and catalysts that are vital to our every-day lives. These atoms often occupy specific geometries which can be challenging to synthesise selectively. In recent years, scrutiny has been placed not only on the commercial viability of the processes which produce these chemicals, but also on their environmental impact. Unfortunately, phosphorus chemistry is quite problematic in this respect: most phosphorus compounds ultimately come from phosphate rock, which is first converted into white phosphorus in a very energy intensive process, and then into more advanced building blocks. A major phosphorus-based building blocks used in the chemical industry is phosphorus trichloride. This compound is made via the direct combination of white phosphorus and chlorine gas (both of which are chemical weapons). Reliance on PCl3 as a starting material is an undesirable state of affairs owing to the compound's toxicity and status as a chemical weapons precursor. Relieving our dependence on this problematic reagent would be highly desirable and is what this project seeks to achieve. This will involve developing new synthetic methods as well as improving pre-existing ones. Proposed solution and methodology Our proposed solution is to use stable precursors based on higher oxidation states of phosphorus. We will develop catalytic methods based on naturally-available molecules to control the geometry at phosphorus as new groups are introduced, and the complexity of the building block is increased.