New Pincer Complex Catalysts for Carbon and Hydrocarbon Upgrading

Catalysis forms the cornerstone of chemical manufacturing, with 20-30% of the world's GDP relying on catalytic process. This sector will also be hugely important for future development, providing everything from the materials we need for sustainable growth to chemical intermediates for medicines and vaccines. In this project new earth abundant early transition metal catalysts (metal = group 4-6) will be made to convert carbon containing molecules (gaseous alkanes, alkenes, CO, CO2) to value added materials. The catalysts will be supported by 'PCP'-type pincer ligands which allow for the careful tuning of the metal centre's electronic and steric properties. This will in turn lead to the optimisation of the reactivity complexes and lead to the carbon upgrading being performed catalytically. With proof-of-concept reactivity established structure-activity relationships will be developed, leading to further catalyst optimisation. The pincer framework will also be extended to other earth abundant elements such as s-block and p-block metals.