Grant: Canada Research Chairs

Chemicals make up the core building blocks for all products that our society relies on (for example, pharmaceuticals for health, agrochemicals for food, advanced materials for microchips, dyes for cosmetics, just to name a few). Unfortunately, the production of chemicals is an energy intensive and polluting process, consuming ~10% of global oil and gas supplies and accounting for ~15% of global emissions. The challenges we face demand a significantly more sustainable approach towards creating these building blocks, and chemists are uniquely positioned to provide solutions. Dr. Caputo’s research program will tackle this problem through a two-pronged approach. The first is developing greener catalysts to create these desired materials – a catalyst is a molecule that lowers the barriers to a chemical reaction, allowing them to proceed using less energy. Unfortunately, many industrial catalysts are based off precious metals, which are rare, expensive, and unsustainable. Dr. Caputo’s research will develop alternatives using earth abundant main-group elements. Recent discoveries have found these metal-free alternatives are nearly as effective as their precious metal counterparts for several key reactions, including the hydrogenation of unsaturated substrates. His research also seeks to understand the fundamental reasons what makes these main-group catalysts effective and use this data to create superior systems. The second approach looks to develop value added molecules from renewable feedstocks, as opposed to the ubiquitously used petroleum feedstocks. This program will apply synthetic chemistry approaches towards specific natural products to develop a first of its kind long lasting personal products, initially targeting ultra long-lasting sun protection. These have the potential to revolutionize the personal care space and would undoubtedly result in significant IP protection and commercialization.