Missions

The project goal is to develop previously over-looked mono- and binuclear phthalocyanines for rapidly expanding area of carbene transfer reactions and to explore the novel reactivity that might provide elaborated organic compounds with interesting biological and pharmacological properties. Along with development of the novel synthetic approach in carbene transfer chemistry, it is of utmost importance to determine the reason of the unusual reactivity which will help to obtain more performant catalysts. The catalytic properties should be sensitive to the distribution of electronic and spin density, hence to the ligand nature. To get insight into structural and electronic properties governing the catalytic activity, we will study MPc and active metal carbene species which can adopt different electronic states by advanced spectroscopic methods (EXAFS, XANES, Raman, etc) and DFT calculations.

Activités

- Synthèsis of catalysts based on phthalocyanines
- Implementation of catalytic reactions
- Reaction analyses by GC-MS and NMR
- Mechanistic studies

Compétences

- Experience in tetrapyrrolic complexes
- Expertise in synthesis of phthalocyanines
- Experience in synthetic organic chemistry
- Purification and isolation of the reaction products by chromatographic methods
- NMR and GC-MS characterization

Contexte de travail

Carbene transfer to X-H bonds (X=N,C,O,S,Si) and olefins has emerged as a powerful strategy for construction of elaborated molecules. These versatile and atom-economic reactions are efficiently catalyzed by porphyrin complexes and engineered hemoproteins and involve carbenoid metal species. In contrast, cheap and industrially available phthalocyanines (MPc) are almost not studied in these reactions. Although MPc have been often considered as porphyrin analogues, their catalytic properties do differ from those of porphyrins. Increasing number of studies shows that MPc are superior to porphyrins in many reactions, in particular in oxidation involving metal-oxo species. Given the involvement of the structurally similar metal-carbene intermediates in carbene transfer reactions, it would be much of interest to evaluate phthalocyanine complexes in these reactions.

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