Development of new heterogeneous vanadium photocatalysts for C-C activation reactions

Abstract

The world today faces many energy and environmental sustainability challenges. A possible solution is to use photocatalysts that are capable of capturing solar energy, and utilise them for the conversion of solar energy into electrical or chemical energy. Examples of such photocatalysts are the vanadium oxo complexes developed by the Soo group in NTU, which are able to make use of light in the visible spectrum as a source of energy to catalyse organic chemical conversions under ambient conditions in a process called photoredox catalysis. In a previous project, we have synthesised nickel-based heterogeneous catalysts that were successfully anchored to tin oxide nanoparticles with maleimide as the anchoring group. Therefore, we hope to further explore the area of heterogeneous catalysts through the synthesis of other vanadium-based catalysts that we can easily anchor onto solid scaffolds through similar click chemistry reactions. The primary aim of this project is to synthesise three different types of heterogenous vanadium catalysts. One has an alkene functionality as the anchoring group (catalyst 1), the other has an alkyne functionality as the anchoring group (catalyst 2), and the last one has maleimide as the anchoring group (catalyst 3). Due to the restrictions during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, the progress of the project had been heavily impeded. Therefore, only catalyst 1 was synthesised. Catalysts 2 and 3 require more experiments to be conducted to find the suitable synthetic pathways with the optimal conditions and reagents.