Transcript Lewis Base  Activation of  Lewis  Acids:  A New Paradigm  for Catalysis in  Main Group Chemistry

Department of Chemistry
Seminar Announcement
Date/Time/Venue
26 Jan (Wed)
3pm – 4pm
@ S8 Level 3
Executive
Classroom
Title/Speaker
Lewis Base Activation of Lewis Acids: A New
Paradigm for Catalysis in Main Group
Chemistry
Professor Scott Denmark
University of Illinois, USA
Host : Assoc Prof Tan Choon Hong
About the Speaker
Professor Scott Denmark obtained his B.Sc degree from M.I.T. in
1975 and D. Sc. Tech degree from the ETH-Zürich in 1980. That
same year he was appointed as assistant professor at the
University of Illinois.
He was promoted to associate professor in 1986, full professor in
1987 and then in 1991 named the Reynold C. Fuson Professor of
Chemistry. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry
(FRSC) and the American Association for the Advancement of
Science.
His primary research interests are in the invention of new synthetic reactions
and the origin of stereocontrol in fundamental carbon-carbon bond forming
reactions. The current emphasis in his laboratories centers on the relationship
between structure, reactivity and stereoselectivity in a variety of organo-element
systems and the concept of Lewis base activation of Lewis acids.
Abstract
Catalysis is a chemical evergreen. Ever since Michael Faraday first recognized
that platinum wire could bring about the combination of hydrogen and oxygen
with spectacular speed, chemists have been fascinated with the origins,
principles, scope and applications of catalysis. Despite Berzelius’s unfortunate
choice of the word for this phenomenon (from the ancient Greek for
destruction), the field of chemical (abiological) catalysis has grown immensely
in the past century. Surprisingly, however, catalysis of reactions of the p-block
(main group) elements is almost non-existent. Over the past decade, my group
has investigated reactions based on elements in Groups 14, 16 and 17, under
the newly developed paradigm of “Lewis-base activation of Lewis acids”. This
lecture will describe the most recent efforts in our laboratories to design,
understand and apply synthetically useful reactions of the halogens and the
chalcogens under catalysis by Lewis bases.
All are Welcome