AIBN Seminar Series Layered 2D composites for catalytic organic reactions – Materials chemistry with some organic flavours

Abstract

Catalytic tandem reactions in organic chemistry are one of the most effective tools for building bioactive complex organic compounds based on readily available small molecules. Their importance has been further enhanced as they play a key role in upgrading biomass into high-value chemicals and biofuels. However, to realize their full potential, efficient, recyclable and – not to forget – affordable multifunctional catalysts need to be designed and developed. Pioneers in this field have shown very early on that this is only possible if the various active specimens involved are able to cooperatively promote these tandem reactions. One possible way to create cooperative catalysts is through the isomorphous structural modification of such layered 2D materials, which have their own catalytic active sites whose nature is different from the guest property. For this reason, both bismuth subcarbonate with Lewis acidic and Brønsted basic properties and layered double hydroxides (LDH) with Brønsted basic properties appear to be potential host candidates. In this presentation, I will present my recent findings focused on the formation of cooperative catalysts based on above noticed hosts, which are modified by some interesting cationic transition metal/basic metal centres (e.g., Ni(II), Co(II)/Co(III), Mn(II), Sn(IV), Ce(III)/Ce(IV)) as guests.

Bio

Dr Gábor Varga has received his master’s degree (2014) and PhD (2017) in Chemistry from the University of Szeged, Hungary, where he is now an assistant lecturer. With financial support from a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Global Fellowship recently awarded to him by the EU, he is now working as a visiting researcher at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. His research interests focus on organic transformations promoted by heterogeneous catalysts (heterocyclisations, couplings, hydrogenations) and surface modifications of 2D materials.