Hyperbaric reactor for synthesis and materials chemistry

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Some chemical reactions that are sluggish or do not proceed at normal atmospheric pressure are strongly accelerated under hyperbaric, or high pressure conditions.  Other types of chemical reactions are retarded at high pressure.  Application of high pressure on a chemical system can therefore be an extremely powerful tool to the chemist to control the course of competitive and consecutive reactions and to control the regio-, chemo- and stereoselectivity of some reactions.  The equipment that forms the basis of this application can exert pressures of over 10000 times that of normal atmospheric pressure (or, put another way, 10 times greater than the pressure exerted at the bottom of the Mariana Trench- the deepest part of the ocean).  This grant is to refurbish an existing high pressure reactor that provided a useful tool for chemical discovery for over a decade, but is no longer working. A simple refurbishment is 20% of the cost of a new instrument.  This equipment will be used by a number of research groups and be exploited to facilitate specific chemical reactions in the preparation of natural products and organic pharmaceuticals that otherwise would be impossible or result in poor yields under normal conditions. In addition, the scope of its use will be expanded to materials chemistry applications. Recently, the applicants discovered that the chemical modification of metal nanoparticles (and other solid supports) can be accelerated using hyperbaric conditions and thus new avenues of research opportunities now exist. The equipment is required for Canada to keep its competitive edge in this emerging area.