Research Projects

This proposal describes the development of heterogeneous chiral catalyst by means of encapsulation in zeolite-Y. The overall goal of this proposal is to design and synthesize novel heterogeneous chiral catalyst following some environmentally benign synthesis method and apply them for asymmetric catalysis. Homogeneous chiral catalyst although possess advantages in terms of selectivity but they fail in terms of recovery and recyclability. since the chiral catalyst are costly, so from industrial and economic point of view they need to be preserved for longer period, recycled to maximum number of times. Heterogenization of homogeneous catalyst by means of encapsulation or immobilization into solid support such as zeolite-Y provides a convenient way to restore the structure, catalytic activity and enhances the recyclability of the catalyst. The first hypothesis of the proposed project is to design some homogeneous chiral transition metal complexes using some chiral schiff base and chiral carboxylic acids as ligand source. Corresponding heterogeneous chiral catalyst will be synthesized via encapsulation into zeolite-Y cavity using "ship in a bottle" synthesis method or by ion-exchange method. The second hypothesis of the proposed project is to scrutinize the catalytic activity of the homogeneous and the heterogeneous chiral catalysts for various asymmetric organic transformation reaction viz Henry reaction, Michael addition reaction etc. DFT-based theoretical study will be implemented to understand the structural, electronic and reactivity properties of homogeneous and zeolite-Y supported chiral catalyst.