Research View and Objectives:
Synthetic methods for the valorisation of raw materials and by-products are attractive to both industry and society since they convert chemical waste into reusable products, thus making a better use of disposal costs and pollutants. In line with this view, our research aims to develop sustainable catalytic processes to convert carbon feedstock into value-added products, which can either serve as synthetic building-blocks, streamline the synthesis of molecules of societal importance (medicines, materials and agrochemicals) or expand the current chemical space towards previously inaccessible molecular architectures. To this end, we seek to utilise forefront catalytic technologies that exploit electric current, the energy of photons or Earth-abundant transition-metal sources to generate highly reactive radical intermediates, under mild and environmentally-benign conditions.
Our target is to design novel reagents capable of engaging with ubiquitous functionalities (FG) in readily-available raw materials – by means of efficient polar processes – and activate them towards radical manifolds; taking advantage of the state-of-the-art catalytic methods for radical generation (i.e. electro-, photo-, and metal-catalysis). This approach not only grants for more sustainable and user-friendly experimental conditions, but expands the synthetic potential of established polar catalytic processes over the whole spectrum of modern radical reactivity. This provides invaluable opportunities for the design and development of new classes of reagents, reactions and catalytic systems – enabling unprecedented transformations and disconnections – thus unlocking new tools for organic synthesis and catalysis.