Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Organotransition metal chemistry has under gone enormous growth in recent years, with many new compounds being reported in addition to numerous applications to a variety of fields such as organic synthesis, catalysis and materials science. Our research in the recent funding cycle has involved topics as diverse as the synthesis of new compounds which have never previously seen the light of day, catalytic alkene polymerization to give new materials with potentially very useful properties and, in collaboration with scientists in the Cancer Reseach Labs at Queen's, utilization of organometallic compounds as anti-cancer drugs. In the next few years, our research will again involve the synthesis of compounds never previously prepared, as well as studies of their potential applications as interesting new catalysts. We shall also discover new catalysts for effecting novel organic syntheses, and we shall utilize low temperature nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy to detect reactive intermediates in important catalytic reactions. While much of our research, such as the synthesis of new compounds, is fundamental in nature as it involves gaining an understanding of structures and bonding modes not previously known, our catalysis research has much broader potential applications. For instance, one key aspect of our program involves the development of new and more effective catalyst systems for a number of reactions which result in the formation of new carbon-carbon, carbon-nitrogen and carbon-oxygen bonds. This class of reactions, for which the 2010 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded, is extremely important to the Canadian pharmaceutical industry. Other aspects of our research are potentially very relevant to the plastics industry as our research involves on the one hand gaining a better understanding of the mechanisms involved when during the manufacture of the tremendously important plastics polyethylene and polypropylene, on the other hand devising new approaches to making polyethylene, polypropylene and polystyrene (styrofoam) biodegradable. Success in the latter endeavour will have major environmental implications.