Bis(carbene) Analogues of Aluminium and Gallium as Building Blocks for Highly Selective Reagents and Next Generation Catalysts

Introduction

Molecular chemistry impacts a wide range of transformational activities that society relies on and thus plays a key role in addressing the societal challenges facing the European Union in the 21st century. Current synthetic methods commonly depend on rare and costly precious metals or face obstacles stemming from mismatching molecular orbitals, which necessitates atom-inefficient synthetic pathways.

Research Necessity

Hence, research on the utilisation of abundant and environmentally benign elements in synthesis and catalysis and the exploration of alternative activation and functionalisation strategies is urgently required.

Project Overview

AGILE addresses these challenges by establishing new methods for breaking and making chemical bonds and for redox-catalysis with a single system, i.e. homo- and heterobimetallic bis(carbene) analogues of aluminium and gallium. These will be utilised as the next generation of selective reagents, high performing catalysts, and valuable ligands.

Development of Novel Compounds

AGILE will develop novel, reactive compounds that combine the benefits of derivatives in highly reactive oxidation states with the cooperativity of dinuclear Al and Ga complexes that are cheap, environmentally benign, and non-toxic.

Unique Reactivity

Equipped with unique frontier molecular orbitals, they will provide the reversible reactivity crucially required to unlock a wide range of elemental steps. By merging two one-electron processes, AGILE will overcome the limitations of monometallic two-electron reactions, thereby enabling redox-catalysis by main-group bimetallics.

Use of Lewis Acids

Finally, AGILE will use prototypical Lewis acids as very strong electron donors to promote redox-catalysis with abundant first-row transition metals. In-depth kinetic, spectroscopic, and computational insight will help us achieve these challenging objectives.

Contribution to Chemistry

By providing new catalysts and expanding the scope of challenging chemical transformations, AGILE will significantly contribute to the development of main-group chemistry and more sustainable synthetic methods.