Coordination chemistry approaches to societal issues: environmental and health

Project Description

This Overseas Travel Grant (OTG) will bring together internationally recognised laboratories to tackle issues ranging from new anti-cancer compounds to forming plastics with desirable environmental properties (the ability to degrade better in landfill sites). Although the OTG is not going to be generating research in itself, the discussions with the Chinese and Japanese groups will themselves lead to the research. All of the projects stand a far greater chance of success if the PI can visit the named groups in order to execute effective face-to-face collaboration and pave the way for further developments. A number of research themes have been identified herein, which will run in parallel, namely

[1] Designing new catalysts for plastic production. The plastics will be biodegradable polymers to address current issues with landfill sites.

[2] New metal-based anti-cancer and/or imaging agents will be developed and screened in the new state-of-the-art PET centre at Hull.

[3] Use of multi-dentate anionic ligands at niobium to provide access to new metathesis catalysts.

[4] Evaluation of vanadium-based calixarene compounds to act as heterogeneous catalysts for a variety of processes to include oxidative dehydrogenation of ethylbenzene (with CO2) and that of n-butane; the polymerization of vinylidene difluoride is also of interest.

[5] New metal-metal bonded chemistry and application thereof to the activation of small molecules, for example alkyne activation.

Much of the synthetic work conducted in these projects in the various laboratories will be guided by molecular modelling conducted in Japan (Escano, Fukui University). The six Far East research groups involved have been selected given that they contribute complementary expertise to that available in the PIs group in Hull, with a mix of organic synthesis, computational chemistry and materials evaluation, and will allow access to state-of-the-art equipment that is not available in Hull or indeed readily available elsewhere the UK.