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

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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).