Research Overview

The projects we pursue are motivated by the development of unique and fundamentally important areas of chemistry, in particular, the chemistry of very low oxidation state and low coordination number s- and p-block compounds. In addition to the fundamental aspects of modern main group chemistry, we are also interested to apply highly reactive, low oxidation state metal-metal bonded systems to synthesis, catalysis, and hydrogen storage etc. In a nutshell, our esearch program can be divided in three different categories. Please visit our publication page to see details of some the chemistry that we are discovering.  

Low-valent main group compounds and small molecule activation

The main interest of our research group is the isolation of compounds with low coordinate heavier main group elements, including cations and multiply bonded species. Much emphasis lies on the elucidation of the electronic structure and reactivity of such novel compounds, thereby enabling their applications in organic synthesis, catalysis, and material sciences. The spectroscopic and structural characterization of these unsaturated molecules has shed new insight to understanding their bonding properties. It has only recently become apparent that a variety of low-valent main-group compounds can perform transition-metal like small molecule activation processes. We have ongoing research efforts that look to utilize N-heterocyclic carbenes and their heavier congenrs such as silylenes, germylenes etc. for splitting of catalytically important Si-H, N-H, B-H, C-F bonds under ambient conditions.

Alkali and alkaline earth metal chemistry and catalysis

The developments of alkali and alkaline earth metal catalysts for organic transformations are still in their infancy, although they offer potential alternatives to the transition metal catalysts. And alkaline earth metal compounds are earth abundant, non-toxic and biocompatibale. Grignard reagents are known for more than 100 years, but what is about the Grignard with Ca? The question remains if we can overcome the infamous Schlenk equilibrium. To address this, we have prepared a series of magnesium and calcium compounds and successfully used them for hydroboration and cyanosilylation of unsaturaed compounds. Due to same oxidation state of magnesium and calcium, we closely follow the zinc chemistry. We have prepared several novel zinc compounds and use them for polymerization reaction. We all know organolithium reagents from text book chemistry, but is it possible to use them in catalysis? The answer is Big Yes.

Silicon compounds in catalysis

Silicon compounds seems to provide many opportunities because silicon is the (a) isostere of carbon, (b) non-metal, (c) silicon precursors are inexpensive, and (d) the second most earth abundant element. Due to these priori favorable attributes, we have envisioned to use well-defined silicon compounds in catalysis and we have our initial successes.We have used two types of silicon compounds in catalysis: (a) Prototypical Si(IV) compound and (b) Si(II) compound. The former believes to undergo sigma-bond metathesis, much different from the typical oxidative addition and reductive elimination mechanism. It would be interesting to see how the latter behaves. They can undergo oxidative addition, but will the reductive elimination possible?

The students in our group will receive training in a wide variety of synthesis of organic and inorganic main-group compounds, mostly under inert atmosphere using Schlenk techniques and Glove Boxes. Besides, they need to learn all the spectroscopic techniques as well as X-ray crystallography.