Main Group Metal-Metal Bonds

随着全球对可持续发展和减少气候变化影响的迫切需求，利用废物排放并将其纳入增值产品的能力是科学公司面临的最大挑战之一。该研究项目旨在设计和开发以环境友好和丰富的金属为基础的新型催化剂，重点是铝，这是地壳中发现的第三大丰度元素。这将与目前工业中使用的贵重过渡金属形成鲜明对比，后者通常有毒，而且由于长期供应有限，价格昂贵。因此，开发廉价、无毒、可持续的金属催化剂是当务之急。这项提议中针对的催化剂不仅利用了这一点，而且旨在将两个金属中心结合在同一框架内。这两个金属中心的结合将发展我们对化学键的基本理解，并将开辟单一金属中心无法进入的新的反应途径。这将导致建立许多新的可持续催化进程。此外，它将使我们能够有针对性地激活二氧化碳等温室气体，并将其转化为燃料、药品和可持续塑料等增值产品，从而实现未来繁荣的绿色经济。

With the pressing global demand for sustainability and reducing the impact of climate change, the ability to use waste emissions and incorporate them into value added products is one of Science's grandest challenges. This research project aims to design and develop new catalysts based upon environmentally benign and abundant metals with a focus on aluminium, the third most abundant element found within the Earth's crust. This will provide a stark contrast to the precious transition metals currently employed in industry, which are typically toxic and, with their limited long- term supply, expensive. Thus, development of cheap, non-toxic and sustainable metal catalysts is of high priority. The catalysts targeted in this proposal not only take advantage of this but aim to combine two metal centres within the same framework. The combination of the two metal centres will develop our fundamental understanding of chemical bonding and will open up new reactivity pathways which are not accessible to single metal centres. This will lead to the establishment of many new sustainable catalytic processes. Moreover, it will allow us to target the activation of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and convert them into value added products such as fuels, pharmaceuticals and sustainable plastics enabling a future prosperous green economy.