Ligand Designs for Sustainable Chemistry and Materials

纵观人类历史，经济活动和资源消耗紧密相连，对我们的地球和气候产生了越来越直接的影响。在通往未来的道路上，环境影响可以与现代生活的舒适分离，这可以说是我们这个时代的关键挑战。该项目旨在通过连接配体设计、配位化学和材料科学，从可持续发展的角度来解决这个问题。长期目标是开发新的分子材料和合成方法，可以(a)有效地收集和相互转换光能和电能；(b)在生产增值材料时采用可持续的原料。实现这些目标的科学方法是设计可用于控制过渡金属配合物的电子性质和反应性的分子支架（配体）。使这些配体在一种情况下有用的性质，例如赋予控制电子激发态的能力，可以在另一种情况下产生有效的化学反应：例如，通过稳定反应中间体来赋予合成中的化学控制。因此，通过深入研究配体设计，这种方法有望在一系列领域产生影响，从构建用于可持续太阳能收集的丰富的金属基光吸收器，到发现用于显示技术的新型节能发射器，再到开发低废物催化途径，再到使用可持续原料的增值化学品。通过将基本的分子结构-性质/反应性研究与追求实际应用相结合，拟议的研究计划承诺具有重大和直接影响的潜力，并为化学家的工具箱增加新的认识。参加这项研究计划的学员将具有独特的技能，具备合成无机和有机金属化学的工业相关知识基础；配体设计、配位化学和催化；通过与世界各地领先的研究人员在高度专业化的光谱技术方面的合作，获得了先进的表征知识。通过参与前沿研究和有意义的外展，项目参与者将培养一种创造力和社会背景，这对于加拿大快速增长的绿色能源和可再生资源部门来说是非常可取的。

Throughout human history, economic activity and resource consumption have been strongly linked, with increasingly immediate consequences for our planet and climate. Navigating our way to a future in which environmental impacts can be decoupled from the amenities of modern living is arguably the critical challenge of our time. This program seeks to address this by connecting ligand design, coordination chemistry and materials science, viewed through a lens of sustainability. The long-term goal is to develop new molecular materials and synthetic methodologies that can (a) efficiently harvest and interconvert light and electrical energy; and (b) employ sustainable feedstocks in the production of value-added materials. The scientific approach that will be taken to achieve these goals is to design molecular scaffolds (ligands) that can be used to control the electronic properties and reactivity of transition metal coordination complexes. The properties that make these ligands useful in one context, such as endowing control over electronic excited states, can engender productive chemistry in another: for example, imparting chemical control in synthesis through stabilizing reactive intermediates. Thus, by diving deep into ligand design, this approach promises impact in a range of areas, from the construction of abundant metal-based light absorbers for sustainable solar energy harvesting, to the discovery of new energy-efficient emitters for display technologies, to the development of low-waste catalytic routes to value-added chemicals using sustainable feedstocks. By combining fundamental molecular structure-property/reactivity studies with a pursuit of practical applications, the proposed research program promises both the potential of significant and immediate impact, and to add new understanding to the chemist's toolbox. Trainees participating in this research program will emerge uniquely skilled, equipped with an industrially relevant knowledge base in synthetic inorganic and organometallic chemistry; ligand design, coordination chemistry and catalysis; and advanced characterization, augmented by knowledge gained through collaboration with leading researchers around the world in highly specialized spectroscopic techniques. Through engaging in both cutting-edge research and meaningful outreach, program participants will develop a sense of creativity and societal context that should be highly desirable to Canada's rapidly growing green energy and renewable resource sectors.