Hyperbaric reactor for synthesis and materials chemistry

一些化学反应在常压下缓慢或不能在常压下进行，但在高压条件下会强烈加速。其他类型的化学反应在高压下会被减缓。因此，对化学体系施加高压可以是化学家控制竞争和连续反应过程以及控制某些反应的区域、化学和立体选择性的极其强大的工具。构成这种应用基础的设备可以施加超过正常大气压10000倍的压力(或者，换句话说，10倍于马里亚纳海沟底部施加的压力(海洋最深的部分)。这笔赠款是为了翻新现有的高压反应堆，该反应堆十多年来一直是化学发现的有用工具，但已不再起作用。一次简单的翻新是一台新仪器成本的20%。该设备将被多个研究小组使用，并被利用来促进天然产品和有机药物制备中的特定化学反应，否则这些反应在正常条件下是不可能的或导致产量较低。此外，它的使用范围将扩大到材料化学应用。最近，申请人发现，金属纳米颗粒(和其他固体载体)的化学修饰可以在高压条件下加速，因此现在有了新的研究机会。这些设备是加拿大在这一新兴领域保持竞争优势所必需的。

Some chemical reactions that are sluggish or do not proceed at normal atmospheric pressure are strongly accelerated under hyperbaric, or high pressure conditions.  Other types of chemical reactions are retarded at high pressure.  Application of high pressure on a chemical system can therefore be an extremely powerful tool to the chemist to control the course of competitive and consecutive reactions and to control the regio-, chemo- and stereoselectivity of some reactions.  The equipment that forms the basis of this application can exert pressures of over 10000 times that of normal atmospheric pressure (or, put another way, 10 times greater than the pressure exerted at the bottom of the Mariana Trench- the deepest part of the ocean).  This grant is to refurbish an existing high pressure reactor that provided a useful tool for chemical discovery for over a decade, but is no longer working. A simple refurbishment is 20% of the cost of a new instrument.  This equipment will be used by a number of research groups and be exploited to facilitate specific chemical reactions in the preparation of natural products and organic pharmaceuticals that otherwise would be impossible or result in poor yields under normal conditions. In addition, the scope of its use will be expanded to materials chemistry applications. Recently, the applicants discovered that the chemical modification of metal nanoparticles (and other solid supports) can be accelerated using hyperbaric conditions and thus new avenues of research opportunities now exist. The equipment is required for Canada to keep its competitive edge in this emerging area.