Main Group Metal-Metal Bonds

With the pressing global demand for sustainability and reducing the impact of climate change, the ability to use waste emissions and incorporate them into value added products is one of Science's grandest challenges. This research project aims to design and develop new catalysts based upon environmentally benign and abundant metals with a focus on aluminium, the third most abundant element found within the Earth's crust. This will provide a stark contrast to the precious transition metals currently employed in industry, which are typically toxic and, with their limited long- term supply, expensive. Thus, development of cheap, non-toxic and sustainable metal catalysts is of high priority. The catalysts targeted in this proposal not only take advantage of this but aim to combine two metal centres within the same framework. The combination of the two metal centres will develop our fundamental understanding of chemical bonding and will open up new reactivity pathways which are not accessible to single metal centres. This will lead to the establishment of many new sustainable catalytic processes. Moreover, it will allow us to target the activation of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and convert them into value added products such as fuels, pharmaceuticals and sustainable plastics enabling a future prosperous green economy.