Researcher's name
László Kollár
University of Pécs, Faculty of Natural Sciences
Amount of support
28 000 000 Ft
Brief description of the research
The vast majority of the chemical reactions of practical importance run in the presence of catalysts. Most of them are heterogeneous catalytic reactions, that is, the solid catalyst and the reactants (and products as well) are in different phases forming an easily separable mixture. Although the application of homogeneous catalytic reactions raises several questions, their high chemo-, regio. and stereoselectivity revolutionized synthetic chemistry. During the last two decades discoverers of several transition metal catalyzed reactions awarded the Nobel Prize (2001, 2005, 2010, 2022). These reactions have become indispensable tools in the tool-kit of most synthetic chemists.
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Carbonylation reactions are in the focus of our investigations. In addition to increase activity and selectivity there is a great demand to avoid of using toxic platinum metal complexes and reagents. Similarly, the elimination of conventional highly volatile organic solvents to decrease environmental effect is also highly required.
The most important topics of our investigations are as follows.
- hydroformylation of alkenes in the presence of transition metal complexes,
- amino-, alkoxy- and aryloxicarbonylation of iodo/bromoarenes and iodoalkenes,
- the use of biomass-based solvents instead of fossil-based ones,
- the use of carbon monoxide surrogates,
- the application of 3d transition metal complexes (compatible to biological systems) instead of platinum metal complexes by tuning the ligand properties,
- investigation of catalytic precursors and intermediates by quantumm chemical methods,
- functionalization of skeletons of practical importance, as well as the application of homogeneous catalytic eactions as key-reactions in multistep syntheses.
Although the synthesis of biologically important compounds is also involved in our research, it can be considered as fundamental research aiming at the discovery of theoretical bases.
