Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Transition metal complexes play a very important role in the chemical industry through their use as catalysts. Catalysts are in fact essential for the manufacturing of more than ninety percent of the chemicals produced today, leading to much reduced energy consumption for large-scale productions. In many cases, some organic transformations and materials would also be inexistent or proceed in poor yield and selectivity without such catalysts. It is therefore critical to further develop our understanding of the requirements for catalysts to achieve high activity without decomposition at relevant process conditions. We are especially interested in the activation and transformation of small inert molecules, such as molecular nitrogen, the major component of air, into useful derivatives that subsequently find use in many areas, including the pharmaceutical, materials and plastic industries. A new strategy based on a new ligand family is presented. The new ligands will be used to constrain the resulting transition metal complexes into a geometry that promotes reaction through proper molecular orbital interactions. Model compounds for intermediates present during catalytic cycles will be prepared to gain insight into their chemistry. This knowledge will be used to develop new catalysts.