NSF Award
1465292
With this award, the Chemical Catalysis Program of the Division of Chemistry is funding Professor Jin-Quan Yu of The Scripps Research Institute to develop new reactions that convert carbon-hydrogen bonds in organic molecules into a wide range of more complex chemical structures. These transformations are important tools for the synthesis of molecules that are used in pharmaceuticals, fine chemicals, and agrochemicals, and controlling the chemistry of carbon-hydrogen bond functionalization has been a long-standing challenge for the chemistry community. Additional broader impacts of the research project include student and postdoctoral researcher training, an outreach program to elementary students, and inviting high-school students to perform research in the laboratory over the summer.<br/><br/>Professor Yu is developing methods to perform the site-selective functionalization of remote and geometrically inaccessible carbon-hydrogen bonds promoted by weak coordination of palladium complexes, continuing a linge of research which has led to some of the first such successes along these lines. Specifically, research is being focused on meta-carbon-hydrogen (C-H) activation processes using nitrile-based templates. First, new nitrile templates are being developed and extensively optimized for previously unsuccessful substrates. Second, new ligands and conditions are being developed to enable challenging transformations such as meta-carbon-hydrogen carbonylation. Third, an in-depth understanding of how the nitrile template directs remote carbon-hydrogen activation is sought by characterizing the large-membered cyclometalation intermediates as well as seeking to identify the transition state structures through computational efforts. If successful, the methods being developed in these studies could find broad application in chemical methods/synthesis laboratories in both academe and industry.
