Organometallic Chemistry of the Nonmetals: Unlocking New Approaches to Green Catalysis

我们的研究和培训计划将研究主要族元素的新化学性质，将它们转化为大量和精细化学合成的有效和可持续的催化剂。21世纪化学面临的最大挑战之一是发展可持续的化学品生产方法。催化这个概念被认为是绿色化学的支柱之一，目前化学工业的大多数部门都在使用它，以便为社会提供所需的各种增值产品。不幸的是，尽管催化剂在可持续性方面具有优势，但现代催化剂通常依赖于活性部位的过渡金属（TMs），这一事实也带来了重要的缺点。事实上，贵重的过渡金属——在加拿大价格昂贵、稀有且难以从自然资源中提取的元素——在元素周期表的所有元素中具有最完善的催化化学。TMs提取的高价格、毒性和环境挑战性是限制其可持续性和适用性的重要因素。由于缺乏TMs固有的反应活性，主族元素在催化研究中一直被忽视。MGEs通常缺乏氧化还原灵活性和空位轨道和填充轨道的有利组合，这使得TMs非常适合用于催化。我们的项目将寻找策略，同时解决MGEs的这些已知缺陷，并利用其独特的特性开发具有开创性的可持续催化剂，用于广泛的应用。我们的计划有一个双管齐下的愿景：我们不仅将通过开发工业重要反应的无金属催化剂来解决应用驱动的问题，而且还将在MGEs化学的基础科学研究中发挥主导作用，并挑战一些关于其反应性的传统假设。我们的长期愿景是使MGE成为催化的主流。为了达到我们的目标，我们将使用合理的设计方法，并为小组的所有成员建立预测计算建模方面的专业知识。通过此次培训，该团队将解决三个初始目标：-通过开发稳定但反应性强的单配位配合物，探索MGEs难以捉摸的氧化态的氧化还原反应性。-开发一类具有互补的s-酸性和p-碱性性质的新型碳烯，以模拟TMs的轨道排列。-开发与氟化烯烃相容的烯烃转化用MGE催化剂。这种突破性的知识进步、有前景的绿色应用和HQP的最先进培训的结合，将极大地有利于加拿大在科学和社会方面的领导地位。具体来说，工业对绿色技术和低成本催化剂的兴趣将使在设计基于mge的催化剂方面受过训练的科学家成为一种受欢迎的HQP。

Our research and training program will study new chemistry of the main group elements to turn them into potent and sustainable catalysts for bulk and fine chemical synthesis. One of the great challenges of chemistry in the 21st century is the development of sustainable approaches to the production of chemicals. Catalysis, a concept reckoned as one of the pillars of green chemistry, is currently used by most sectors of the chemical industry in order to provide society with the variety of value-added products it requires. Unfortunately, despite the advantages of catalysis in term of sustainability, the fact that modern catalysts typically rely on transition metals (TMs) in their active site comes with important disadvantage. Indeed, precious transitions metals - elements that are costly, rare in Canada and difficult to extract from natural resources - have the best-developed catalytic chemistry of all the elements of the periodic table. The high price, toxicity and environmentally challenging extraction of TMs is an important limitation in the sustainability and applicability of catalysis. Because they lack the intrinsic reactivity of TMs, the main group elements (MGEs) have long been neglected in catalytic research. MGEs typically lack the redox flexibility and advantageous combination of vacant and filled orbitals that make the TMs ideally suited for catalysis. Our program will find strategies to at the same time address these perceived deficiencies of MGEs and to use their unique characteristics to develop ground-breaking sustainable catalysts for a wide range of applications. Our program has a two-pronged vision: we will not only tackle application-motivated problems by developing metal-free catalysts for industrially-important reactions, but also take a leading role in the fundamental scientific investigation of the chemistry of MGEs and challenge some traditional assumptions regarding their reactivity. Our long term vision is to make MGE part of the mainstream of catalysis. To reach our goals, we will use a rational design approach and build an expertise in predictive computational modelling for all members of the group. With this training, the team will tackle three initial objectives: - To explore the redox-based reactivity of elusive oxidation state of MGEs by developing stable-yet-reactive mono-coordinated complexes. - To develop a new class of carbenes that display complementary s-acidic and p-basic properties to mimic the orbital arrangement of TMs . - To develop MGE catalysts for olefin metathesis compatible with fluorinated olefins. This mixture of ground-breaking advancement of knowledge, of promising green applications, and of state-of-the-art training of HQP will be of great benefit to the Canadian leadership in science and society. Specifically, the industrial interest for green technologies and catalysis that come at a low cost will make scientists trained in the design of MGE-based catalysts a sought-after type of HQP.