EPSRC : Thomas Kieran Redpath : EP/W522260/1

Catalysis is an essential way to speed up chemical reactions and to decrease the energy demands of those reactions (e.g. by decreasing reaction temperatures). Most homogenous catalysis, where the starting materials and catalyst are in the solution phase together, in the pharmaceutical and agrochemical industries requires expensive, rare, and often toxic heavy transition metals such as palladium, platinum, iridium, and rhodium.

Nickel is a cheap and abundant metal that can be used to achieve many of the same reactions that palladium and platinum can perform, allowing for more complex materials to be made with greater ease, at lower cost, and more sustainably. Currently, palladium (considered a rare and precious metal) is used to do this in molecules where the desired outcome is the coupling of carbon and phosphorous to form a new bond. Due to the similar reactivity of nickel and palladium in some circumstances, this is something that should be possible with nickel, but for which there are relatively few known examples. The aim of the project is to develop nickel-catalysed reactions that form bonds between carbon and phosphorus, using catalysts with nickel at the centre. The use of ligands, which are groups that attach to the metal catalyst, changes the properties and reactivity of the catalyst; our partners at Dalhousie University (Nova Scotia, Canada) are world experts in ligand design and development and will share their expertise to make our aims a reality. This will enable more cost-effective catalysis in the future for these kinds of chemical transformations.