Highly reactive catalysts for the hydrogenation of poorly reactive substrates

一个好的催化剂可以大大加快化学反应的速度，而不会在反应中耗尽催化剂本身。对化学过程对环境危害更小的要求增加了利用微量催化剂促进两种通常不相互反应（以可测量的速率）的化学物质之间的清洁，有效反应的重要性。催化反应的一个潜在的重要例子是将一类被称为羧酸衍生物的化学物质催化还原为醇。酒精是药物、香料、香水和塑料的最重要成分之一。有许多试剂可以进行这种转化，但大多数会产生废物。从经济和生态的角度来看，更可取的是使用催化剂和氢分子来完成这项任务，因为不会产生废物。最近在这一领域有了一些进展，一些催化剂在这类反应中显示出一些希望。然而，在催化剂被认为是真正有效之前，还需要进一步的工作。该研究项目要求资助一名国际访问者访问圣安德鲁斯大学，进行详细的研究，测量反应速率作为催化剂结构、催化剂浓度、活化过程的函数，并调查新催化剂的稳定性。该项目将研究由配体衍生的新型催化剂，该配体通过磷原子和氮原子的组合结合钌。新的预催化剂将在项目期间合成，但将尝试表征氢化过程中形成的催化中间体。这种彻底的以机制为主导的方法有望使我们能够为这一转变提供迄今为止最有希望的催化剂。这项工作将使未来的研究成为可能，有望导致工业上可行的工艺。与目前的先进技术相比，这种工艺将产生更少的废物，并减少工业中能源、化学品、溶剂和水的使用。

A good catalyst allows the rate of a chemical reaction to be accelerated enormously, without the catalyst itself being used up in the reaction. The demand for chemical processes to be less harmful to the environment has increased the importance of reactions that utilise tiny amounts of catalyst to promote clean, efficient reactions between two chemicals that do not normally react with each other (at a measurable rate). One potentially important examples of a catalytic reaction is the catalytic reduction of a class of chemicals called carboxylic acid derivatives to alcohols. Alcohols are one of the most important ingredients for drugs, flavours, fragrances and plastics. There are a number of reagents to do this transformation, but most generate waste. More desirable from an economic and ecological point of view is to use a catalyst and molecular hydrogen to accomplish this task, since no waste would be formed. There have been some recent developments in this area with some catalysts showing some promise in this type of reaction. However, further work is required before the catalysts can be considered genuinely effective, This research project requests funds for an international visitor to visit St Andrews and carry out detailed studies measuring the rates of the reactions as a function of catalyst structure, catalyst concentration, activation procedure and investigate the stability of the new catalysts. The project will study new types of catalyst derived from ligands that bind ruthenium by a combination of phosphorus and nitrogen atoms. Novel pre-catalysts will be synthesies during the project, but an attempt to characterise the catalytic intermediates formed during the hydrogenation process will be made. This thorough mechanism-led approach will hopefully enable us to produce the most promising catalyst for this transformation to date. The work will enable future studies that would hopefully lead to an industrially viable process. Such a process would produce less waste and reduce energy, chemical, solvent and water usage in industry relative to the current state-of-the-art.