Frustrated lewis pairs: a new paradigm in reactivity and catalysis

今天使用的大部分化学品、药品和材料的生产都涉及到某种形式的催化。大多数情况下，这种工艺需要使用贵金属，这大大增加了最终产品的成本。此外，这些金属产生与毒性有关的问题，需要从供人类消费的产品(药品、食品)中去除。在我们NSERC发现基金的研究过程中，我们取得了一项突破性的发现，正在改变化学家对催化的看法。我们在这一领域的初步工作发表在2006年的《科学》杂志上，并描述了第一个能够激活和释放氢的无金属系统。自那以后，这一发现成为开发新的、无金属的催化氢化方法的基础，催化氢化是一种在化学生产中普遍存在的过程。此外，这一发现还为其他常见化学前体的无金属反应指明了方向。

The production of the bulk of chemicals, pharmaceuticals and materials used today involve some form of catalysis. Most often, such processes require the use of precious metals which adds significant cost to the resulting product. In addition, these metals generate issues relating to toxicity necessitating removal from products for human consumption (pharmaceuticals, foodstuffs). During the course of our NSERC discovery grant research, we have made a breakthrough discovery that is changing the way chemists think about catalysis. Our initial work in this area was reported in Science, 2006 and described the first metal-free system capable of activating and releasing hydrogen. This finding has since become the basis for the development of new, metal-free approaches to catalytic hydrogenation, a process that is ubiquitous in chemical production. Moreover, this discovery points the way to metal-free reactions of other common chemical precursors.