Ligand Designs for Sustainable Chemistry and Materials

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Throughout human history, economic activity and resource consumption have been strongly linked, with increasingly immediate consequences for our planet and climate. Navigating our way to a future in which environmental impacts can be decoupled from the amenities of modern living is arguably the critical challenge of our time. This program seeks to address this by connecting ligand design, coordination chemistry and materials science, viewed through a lens of sustainability. The long-term goal is to develop new molecular materials and synthetic methodologies that can (a) efficiently harvest and interconvert light and electrical energy; and (b) employ sustainable feedstocks in the production of value-added materials. The scientific approach that will be taken to achieve these goals is to design molecular scaffolds (ligands) that can be used to control the electronic properties and reactivity of transition metal coordination complexes. The properties that make these ligands useful in one context, such as endowing control over electronic excited states, can engender productive chemistry in another: for example, imparting chemical control in synthesis through stabilizing reactive intermediates. Thus, by diving deep into ligand design, this approach promises impact in a range of areas, from the construction of abundant metal-based light absorbers for sustainable solar energy harvesting, to the discovery of new energy-efficient emitters for display technologies, to the development of low-waste catalytic routes to value-added chemicals using sustainable feedstocks. By combining fundamental molecular structure-property/reactivity studies with a pursuit of practical applications, the proposed research program promises both the potential of significant and immediate impact, and to add new understanding to the chemist's toolbox. Trainees participating in this research program will emerge uniquely skilled, equipped with an industrially relevant knowledge base in synthetic inorganic and organometallic chemistry; ligand design, coordination chemistry and catalysis; and advanced characterization, augmented by knowledge gained through collaboration with leading researchers around the world in highly specialized spectroscopic techniques. Through engaging in both cutting-edge research and meaningful outreach, program participants will develop a sense of creativity and societal context that should be highly desirable to Canada's rapidly growing green energy and renewable resource sectors.