New Technologies for Sustainable Chemistry: An Organometallic Future in Clean Energy

我们正处于“能源危机”之中--随着化石燃料消耗率的增加，大气中的二氧化碳继续达到前所未有的水平，引起了人们对气候变化和海洋酸化的担忧。为了确保子孙后代的福祉，我们必须致力于减少温室气体排放，投资于替代能源，并发现合成特殊化学品的更好/更有效的途径，如保健药物、提高作物产量的农用化学品，以及用于显示技术的有机发光聚合物中的先进化学品。在Drover集团，我们相信清洁能源有一个“有机金属的未来”，利用化学合成和基于金属的反应性来实现这些目标。在这一点上，我的团队的兴趣包括与催化广泛相关的概念，使用具有结构和/或成键特性的新结构，这些结构和/或键特性可用于开发受自然启发的创造性设计元素的新反应。我们将开发功能分子：配体、过渡金属和主族化合物，促进资源的公平利用，特别是在全球氢、碳、氮和氧循环方面。我们的动机来自于希望通过以下方式修改人类与地球的互动：a)发明利用温室气体作为原料的新方法-寻找新的铁催化剂，用于选择性地将废物/温室气体CO2还原为CH3OH：一种合适的汽油替代品和平台化学品；b)通过操纵H2设计新的清洁能源催化剂-氢燃料电池正成为越来越重要的绿色能源，我们的方法将提供从基于地球丰富金属的廉价催化剂开发的新的H2燃料电池技术；以及c)为合成含氟特种化学品、药品和大宗消费品提供了新的路线-所有药物分子中有20%-25%至少含有一个C-F键，该建议通过在有机底物中精确地插入碳氟(C-F)官能团，为烷烃氟化提供了一种新的催化方案。我的研究计划为招募具有广泛种族、性别和地理分布的多元化同事团队提供了一种机制，增强了加拿大在科学包容性以及在能源、可持续发展和催化方面的卓越声誉。此外，这些独创的方法将代表对行业的有吸引力的投资，并将鼓励部门和国际合作(加拿大、美国、英国、中国等)。

We are in the midst of an `energy crisis' - with increasing rates of fossil fuel consumption, atmospheric CO2 continues to reach unprecedented levels, causing concern regarding climate change and ocean acidification. To ensure the well-being of future generations, it is imperative that we work to curtail greenhouse gas emissions, invest in alternative energy sources, and discover superior/more efficient routes for the synthesis of speciality chemicals such as pharmaceuticals for health, agrochemicals to enhance crop yield, and advanced chemicals such as those found in organic light emitting polymers for display technologies. In the Drover group, we believe there is an `organometallic future' to clean energy, employing chemical synthesis and metal-based reactivity to target these goals. In this vein, my group's interests comprise concepts broadly related to catalysis using novel constructs having structure and/or bonding properties that can be leveraged for the development of new reactions with creative design elements inspired by nature. We will develop functional molecules: ligands, transition metal, and main group compounds that promote the equitable use of resources, specifically with regard to global hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen cycles. Our motivation is sourced from a desire to revise how mankind interacts with the planet by a) inventing new methods to utilize greenhouse gases as feedstocks - seeking to identify new iron catalysts for the selective reduction of CO2, a waste/greenhouse gas, to CH3OH: a suitable gasoline substitute and platform chemical; b) designing new catalysts for clean energy through H2 manipulation - hydrogen fuel cells are becoming increasingly important green energy sources and our approach will deliver new H2 fuel cell technology developed from cheap catalysts based on earth abundant metals; and c) providing new routes for the synthesis of fluorine-containing specialty chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and bulk consumer products - with 20-25% of all drug molecules containing at least one C-F bond, this proposal offers a new catalytic protocol for alkane fluorination via the precise insertion of carbon fluorine (C-F) functionality into organic substrates. My research program provides a mechanism for the recruitment of a diverse team of co-workers with broad ethnic, gender, and geographic distribution, enhancing Canada's reputation for scientific inclusivity and excellence in energy, sustainability, and catalysis. In addition, these original approaches shall represent attractive investments for industry and will encourage departmental and international collaboration (Canada, U.S., U.K., China and beyond).