Titre : “Ca”-talysis: Homogeneous Catalysis with Organocalcium Complexes.
Endroit : Pavillon J.A.-Bombardier, salle 1035 à 11 h
Hôte : Frank Schaper
La conférence sera prononcée (en anglais) par le professeur Sjoerd Harder, du département de chimie et de pharmacie de la Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (Allemagne).
Résumé : Decreasing oil reserves and increasing environmental awareness changed the focus of chemical research dramatically. One of our main future challenges is the conversion of renewable feedstocks by environmentally friendly, safe and cheap processes that are catalytic and energy- and atom-efficient and generate useful and durable products.
Although much thought has been put into green processes using alternative feedstocks, catalysts are often based on classical transition metal species. However, for a conversion to a durable future chemistry we should also look into alternative catalysts that are based upon abundant, cheap and non-toxic metals. In this context, organocalcium compounds have been reported as efficient catalysts for various alkene conversions normally catalyzed by transition metals: e.g. polymerization, hydroamination, hydrosilylation, hydrogenation or hydrophosphination. This lecture gives an overview of selected examples in early main group metal catalysis and finishes with recent investigations on the working principles and the role of the metal. It will be shown that there is only a thin line between “Ca”-talysis and Organocatalysis.
