Research Projects

In this proposal, the main interest relies on the merger of solid-supported metal nanoparticles catalyzed chemical transformations and electrochemical promoted organic synthesis. Transition metal nanoparticles supported on solid support catalyzed functionalization offer environmentally friendly and sustainable chemical transformations. These catalysts provide recovery and recycling of precious metal-based catalysts, minimize the cost of a synthetic method and permit easy separation of catalysts and products. However, supported nanoparticles catalysis is often associated with a few disadvantages such as aggregation of active metal nanoparticles, catalysts deactivation by the formation of metal black, and decreased yield in consecutive reaction cycles. These disadvantages limit their practical application in large-scale industries. Electrochemical transition metals catalyzed chemical transformation provide a safer and cheaper chemical process avoiding the use of stoichiometric amounts of toxic, polluting, unnecessary chemical oxidants under environmentally friendly and sustainable conditions. Therefore, it would be highly fascinating to merge solid-supported catalysis and electrochemical synthesis, it would overcome these inadequacies and enable the full expansion of the scope of organic electrochemistry to new and unexplored dimensions. We believe that electrochemical reduction of metal ion intermediate species can regenerate active metal species and reduce the problems while facing the supported catalysis. Thus, this proposal is based on the design of cathode-supported metal nanoparticles and their application in catalyzing C-C cross-coupling reactions particularly Mizoroki-Heck, Suzuki-Miyaura, and Sonogashira coupling reactions. Apart from the cross-coupling reactions, we will also investigate the mechanism of these transformations through various control experiments and analytical techniques.