The Whited Lab has been awarded an NSF grant for $356k to support our research into use of metal/silicon bonds to support cooperative catalysis. In the project, “RUI: CAS-SC: Promoting Group-Transfer Reactions at Metal/Main-Group Bonds,” we will target cut-and-paste-style reactions where reactive chemical fragments can be stitched onto inexpensive and readily abundant substrates to afford products with applications in both bulk- and fine-chemicals. This approach also seeks to replace expensive and toxic metals with earth-abundant ones in catalysis, and thus contributes to the Critical Aspects of Sustainability – Innovative Solutions to Sustainable Chemistry (CAS-SC) initiative.
