N.O. chelated complexes of metals of low toxicity. Catalyst development for green chemistry

我们的研究兴趣是有机金属和有机化学领域的桥梁。 Schafer小组开发了一类新的配合物，它们易于修饰和快速组装，并利用廉价和低毒性的早期过渡金属。 这些配合物使用容易组装的N，O螯合配体，如酰胺化物和脲化物，实现以前未知或未充分探索的配位化合物在催化中的应用。 100%原子经济催化合成方法是绿色化学转化的基石，因为它们在合成有用的化学结构时绝对不产生副产物，并最大限度地减少能源消耗。 我们的新系列催化剂在选择性碳-氮和碳-碳键形成反应中表现出卓越的反应性，这些反应是精细化工、石油化工、制药和农业化学工业的重要转化。正在进行的催化剂开发活动使用基本结构和键合分析，沿着正在开发的新反应的机理研究。 对反应如何进行的详细了解为催化剂改性以提高性能提供了有价值的见解。 最后，该小组采用新开发的催化剂系统合成含杂原子的小分子和杂环，以说明使用有效的催化方法可以实现传统合成方法的潜在优势。 这些新的催化系统的开发有助于减少浪费和提高能源效率，从而为工业相关的化学转化提供可持续的方法。

Our research interests bridge the areas of organometallic and organic chemistry. The Schafer group has developed a new class of complexes that are easily modified and rapidly assembled and that take advantage of inexpensive and low toxicity early transition metals. These complexes use easily assembled N,O chelating ligands, such as amidates and ureates, to realize previously unknown or underexplored coordination compounds for applications in catalysis. 100% Atom economic catalytic synthetic methods are the corner-stone of Green Chemical transformations as they generate absolutely no by-products and minimize energy consumption in the synthesis of useful chemical structures. Our new family of catalysts show remarkable reactivity in selective carbon-nitrogen and carbon-carbon bond forming reactions, important transformations for the fine chemical, petrochemical, pharmaceutical and agrochemical industries. On-going catalyst development activities use fundamental structure and bonding analyses, along with mechanistic investigations of the new reactions under development. A detailed understanding of how the reaction proceeds provides valuable insight for catalyst modification for improved performance. Finally, the group employs newly developed catalyst systems for the synthesis of heteroatom-containing small molecules and heterocycles to illustrate the potential advantages that can be realized in using efficient catalytic approaches over traditional synthetic methods. The development of these new catalytic systems builds toward the minimization of waste and the maximization of energy efficiency to result in sustainable methods for industrially relevant chemical transformations.