Asymmetric Cross-Coupling via Iron-Catalysed Reductive Cross-Coupling

The construction of complex molecular frameworks underpins the future development of everything from new medicines to novel materials. The ability to make carbon-carbon bonds is key to this development. A number of the most used methods to carry out this bond forming reaction rely on the use of expensive, toxic and environmentally damaging transition-metal catalysts.

This research programme aims to develop iron-based alternatives to the currently used methods and expand upon the scope and applicability of the current transformations. Iron catalysts offer the advantage of being inexpensive, non-toxic and environmentally benign and so are of great interest to the chemical community. Specifically, we will introduce a new carbon-carbon bond forming reaction with a concurrent reduction to produce fully saturated products (alkanes).

The proposed research is widely applicable to many stakeholders including those in both industrial and academic settings. This transformation has the potential to be used by any stakeholder wishing to construct new molecular frameworks by the combination of commercially available reagents using an environmentally benign and non-toxic catalyst. The pharmaceutical industry is a good example of one of these stakeholders. Initial-stage drug discovery (medical chemistry) could use the transformation to prepare a diverse range of enantioenriched products and late-stage drug development (process chemistry) would benefit from the simple reaction conditions and the fact that the iron catalyst is environmentally benign, non-toxic and tolerated at high levels within active pharmaceutical ingredients.

The PI and PDRA will be direct beneficiaries of this research. This project will be used to initiate the PI's independent academic career and establish the PI within the fields of synthetic methodology and iron-catalysis. Aside from the academic achievement, this project will also highlight to the broader synthetic community the PI's developing research profile.

The PDRA will also directly benefit from the proposed research. Postdoctoral research is a prerequisite for an academic career and, increasingly, needed to enter the chemical industry. The proposed research is both multidisciplinary and at the forefront of academic research. Thus, the skills gained within this project will equip the PDRA for any future chemical research by providing both excellent technical abilities (practical and analytical) and a working knowledge of project development. The very nature of this project is the development of our initial results and overcoming the initial short-comings of these results.