Title: Harnessing Redox Properties of Organic Persistent Radicals for
Sustainable Synthesis and Catalysis
By: Prof. Tynchtyk Amatov, Ph.D.
New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Abstract: Catalysis contributes to more than 35% of global GDP, and the importance of green, sustainable approaches in this field was underscored by the 2021 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the development of organocatalysis. Radical reactions remain largely unexplored in traditional organocatalysis. Photoredox catalysis has recently gained prominence, leveraging the enhanced redox properties of excited-state molecular catalysts using visible light. Developing organic catalysts capable of mimicking transition metal and photoredox catalysts without light activation could complement existing methods and advance greener approaches to radical generation. However, purely organic ground-state redox catalysis is extremely rare, and no general organocatalysis platforms based on ground-state single-electron shuttling currently exist.
To address this challenge, our lab has focused on developing new catalytic processes using redox-active organic molecules as catalytic platforms. We have discovered that organic nitrogen-centered persistent radicals are excellent, tunable ground-state redox catalysts. Application of their redox-tunability and catalytic versatility in important transformations C−C bond forming transformations will be presented.
