Multifunctional Borylenes for Metal- and Boron-Mediated Reactions

随着我们进入21世纪，我们的社会越来越认识到我们日益增长的能源需求，我们日益减少的传统资源供应，以及人为气候变化造成的全球环境挑战。为了解决这些问题，我们必须开发强调环境管理的可持续技术。无机化学在产生有意义的全球影响方面处于独特的强大地位，因为化学工业约占北美工业能耗的20%，并且约90%的化学过程使用催化剂来提高其能源效率。最近的成功，包括稳定碳烯的发现，预示着高效碳烯支撑的无机催化剂的发展，用于烯烃的分解和交叉偶联反应，这大大减少了获取这些重要化学中间体所需的能量输入。此外，主基团催化的发展为在许多反应中使用稀有过渡金属催化剂提供了第一个替代方案，为资源的可持续利用提供了新的途径。尽管取得了这些成功，但要使我们的社会转向对可持续资源的依赖和对有限资源的负责任管理，仍有许多工作要做。为了解决这些问题，我的研究计划分为两个流派，这两个流派统一的概念是将主基团化学的最新基本进展应用于催化和材料科学，重点是中性硼(I)分子的新兴应用，即硼烯。我们的第一个流将针对过渡金属（TM）的硼炔配体，它为TM中心提供了前所未有的电子密度。这种性质使它们成为构建新型节能催化剂的理想候选物，用于许多工业上重要的反应。第二部分将集中在硼炔的无金属反应性上，将在硼炔和主基团化学中学到的概念结合起来，产生新的催化循环，涉及具有挑战性的转化，如碳氢活化和基于地球丰富元素的分子氮的功能化。另一个应用涉及到使用无金属硼烯来产生新的电子柔性共轭材料库，作为可充电电池中的节能电极材料。我的研究项目专门针对与加拿大工业伙伴的合作，并将加强加拿大在发展环境友好和可持续技术方面的作用，以解决当前社会面临的一些最相关的挑战。参与这些多学科项目的学生将获得技术和沟通技巧，这将使他们在开始独立的职业生涯时能够在绿色化学领域担任领导角色。

As we progress into the 21st century, our society has become increasingly cognizant of our growing energy needs, our dwindling supply of traditional resources, and the global environmental challenges created by anthropogenic climate change. To address these issues, we must develop sustainable technology that emphasizes environmental stewardship. Inorganic chemistry is in a uniquely powerful position to make meaningful global impacts, as chemical industry is responsible for approximately 20% of all industrial energy consumption in North America, and around 90% of all chemical processes utilize catalysts to improve their energy efficiency. Recent successes, including the discovery of stable carbenes heralded the development of highly efficient carbene-supported inorganic catalysts for olefin metathesis and cross-coupling reactions, which served to drastically reduce the energy input required to access these important chemical intermediates. Additionally, the development of main group catalysis has provided the first alternatives to the use of rare transition metal catalysts in many reactions, providing the a new path towards sustainable resource use. Despite these successes, there is still much work to be done to transition our society toward dependence on sustainable resources and responsible management of our finite ones. To tackle these issues, my research program is divided into two streams that are unified under the concept of applying recent fundamental advances in main group chemistry to the catalytic and materials sciences, with a focus on the emerging applications of neutral boron(I) molecules known as borylenes. Our first stream will target borylene ligands for transition metals (TMs) that offer an unprecedented level of electron density to a TM center. This property makes them ideal candidates for the construction of new energy-saving catalysts for use in many industrially important reactions. A second stream will focus on the metal-free reactivity of borylenes, where the concepts learned in borylene and main group chemistry are united to produce new catalytic cycles involving challenging transformations such as C-H activation and the functionalization of molecular nitrogen that are based on earth abundant elements. Another application involves the involves the use of metal-free borylenes to generate new libraries of electronically flexible conjugated materials with applications as energy-saving electrode materials within rechargeable batteries. My research projects specifically target collaboration with Canadian industrial partners, and will strengthen Canada's role in in the development of environmentally friendly and sustainable technology to address some of the most pertinent challenges currently facing society. Students engaged in these multidisciplinary projects will be gain both the technical and communication skills that will allow them to take on leadership roles in green chemistry as they begin their independent careers.