Grant: Alliance Grants

This Catalyst proposal outlines a project to be carried out by an international team from Canada and France, focusing on understanding the physical behaviors of highly oxidized and reactive inorganic complexes to be used as catalysts for carbon-free fuel production. Highly oxidized species are often suggested as intermediates during reaction pathways, but are rarely isolated and examined studied due to their highly reactive nature. To this end, our team has recently reported a novel ligand scaffold capable of stabilizing highly oxidized states under mild conditions, but the properties and reactivity of these species remain unknown. As such, this Catalyst proposal assembles an international team with the combined expertise to investigate these unknowns using advanced spectroscopic and theoretical techniques. Results from this collaboration will better our understanding of the unique properties exhibited by these highly oxidized species, which will be crucial to rationalize their reactivity towards promising sustainable fuel sources such as water and ammonia. Innovation in this area will lead to the development of earth abundant, thus inexpensive, catalysts that will see utility in their respective fuel cell technologies, which is envisaged to further Canadian research innovation towards carbon-free fuels and renewable energies.