C-H activation: design and development of novel catalytic systems for synthetic chemistry

催化C-H功能化旨在开发新的工具，使有机分子中的任何C-H键转化为所需的功能。一旦化学家们开发出一整套用于碳氢化合物功能化的工具（催化剂），快速有效地合成任何分子都将是一项简单的任务。在这个项目中，我们将研究如何用钌盐作为催化剂进行碳氢官能化以及如何控制它们的反应性。钌催化剂中允许改变碳氢官能化位点的关键元素是什么？什么变化可以加速这些钌盐的催化活性？为了回答这些问题，我们将应用最先进的机械研究，包括动力学、化学计量学研究和计算研究。随后，我们将把所有的经验教训结合到新的钌催化剂的设计中，并将其应用于开发新的合成转化，以有效地制备制药、农化和有机电子材料中的重要结构基序。

Catalytic C-H functionalisation aims at developing new tools enabling the transformation of any C-H bond in an organic molecule into the desired functionality. Once chemists have developed a whole set of tools (catalysts) for C-H functionalisation, the fast and efficient synthesis of any molecule will be a simple task. In this project we will study how ruthenium salts can be used as catalysts to carry out C-H functionalisation and how to control their reactivity. What are the key elements in ruthenium catalysts that allow modifying the site of C-H functionalisation? What changes can be made to accelerate the catalytic activity of these ruthenium salts? In order to answer these questions we will apply state of the art mechanistic investigations, including kinetics, stoichiometric studies and computational studies. Subsequently, we will combine all lessons learned into the design of new ruthenium catalysts and their application to the development of new synthetic transformations for the efficient preparation of important structural motifs in pharmaceutical, agrochemical and organic electronic materials.