Pr. Kathrin Hopmann and Annette Bayer have taken the CHOCO group to new horizons, and we will now participate in the Novo Nordisk Foundation Research Center along six other institutions. The centre, based at Aarhus University, is focused on developing technologies for the capture, storage and recycling of CO2. The grant amount is about 850 million NOK (84.7 miliion €).
PhD student Jhonnatan Carvahlo, funded by the CO2PERATE ITN, had the best 5-minutes presentation at the Hylleraas annual meeting last week. Congratulations!
A nice collaboration between UiT and Helsinki University on the mechanism of carbamate formation from CO2 and amines. Congratulations to Ljiljana and Kathrin!
Abstract:
Capture of CO2 by amines is an attractive synthetic strategy for the formation of carbamates. Such reactions can be mediated by superbases, such as 1,1,3,3,-tetramethylguanidine (TMG), with previous implications that zwitterionic superbase–CO2 adducts are able to actively transfer the carboxylate group to various substrates. Here we report a detailed investigation of zwitterionic TMG–CO2, including isolation, NMR behavior, reactivity, and mechanistic consequences in carboxylation of aniline-derivatives. Our computational and experimental mechanistic analysis shows that the reversible TMG–CO2 zwitterion is not a direct carboxylation agent. Instead, CO2 dissociates from TMG–CO2 before concerted low energy carboxylation occurs, where the role of the TMG is to deprotonate the amine as it is attacking a free CO2. This insight is significant, as it opens a rational way to design new synthesis strategies. As shown here, nucleophiles otherwise inert towards CO2 can be carboxylated, even without a CO2 atmosphere, using TMG–CO2 as a stoichiometric source of CO2. We also show natural abundance 15N NMR is sensitive for zwitterion formation, complementing variable-temperature NMR studies.
Read at:
For a list of publications by members of the CHOCO group, see our Publications page 🙂
Congratulations to Ashot, Kathrin and Annette for their newly accepted manuscript, titled “Lipids as versatile solvents for chemical synthesis”.
Abstract:
Development of safe, renewable, cheap and versatile solvents is a longstanding challenge in chemistry. We show here that vegetable oils and related systems can become prominent solvents for organic synthesis. Suzuki-Miyaura, Hiyama, Stille, Sonogashira and Heck cross-couplings proceed with quantitative yields in a range of vegetable oils, fish oil, butter and waxes used as solvents. Appropriate methodologies for high-throughput screening and sustainable isolation techniques applicable for vegetable oils and related lipids are presented.
Read at: For a list of publications by members of the CHOCO group, see our Publications page 🙂
Are you our new colleague?
We are pleased to announce the opening of a 2-year postdoc position within the CHOCO group on the topic of “New Reactions for CO2 Activation”. We are looking to fill the position as soon as possible, so prepare to pack your bags and start your arctic adventure in the beautiful city of Tromsø!
Field of Research:
The Postdoctoral Research Fellow will use quantum chemical methods (standard density functional theory and ab initio molecular dynamics) to model molecules and reactions and to propose promising new molecules for activation of CO2, especially towards enantioselective carbon-carbon bond formation. The work will be performed in close collaboration with experimental organic chemists.
The candidate can expect to be involved in the supervision of Master and PhD students in the group in an amount equivalent to maximum 10 % of a full-time employment.
For more details and application see: https://www.jobbnorge.no/en/available-jobs/job/204851/postdoctoral-research-fellow-in-computational-chemistry-new-reactions-for-activation-of-co2
This month’s occurrence of the NordCO2 Monthly Seminars series is organised by the University of Oslo and hosted by the NordCO2 leader Assoc. Prof. Ainara Nova. The event includes a lecture by Dr. Aleix Comas-Vives from the University of Barcelona, titled “Theory-Aided Comprehension of CO2 Conversion on Heterogeneous Catalysts”, as well as a talk by NordCO2 PhD student Ebrahim Tayyebi from the Univesity of Iceland.
For more details as well as registration, see the Activities page on the NordCO2 website.
Are you our new colleague?
We are pleased to announce the opening of a 2-year postdoc position within the CHOCO group on the topic of “New Methods for Selective CO2 Conversion”. We are looking to fill the position as soon as possible, so prepare to pack your bags and start your arctic adventure in the beautiful city of Tromsø!
Field of Research:
The Postdoctoral Research Fellow will employ experimental organic chemistry methods to investigate organic and organometallic molecules that can bind and activate CO2. The project goal will be to design enantioselective carboxylation reactions and to obtain an in-depth mechanistic understanding of these. The work will be performed in collaboration with computational chemists in the team.
For more details and application see: https://www.jobbnorge.no/en/available-jobs/job/204449/postdoctoral-research-fellow-in-organic-chemistry-new-methods-for-selective-co2-conversion
Today we celebrate our female scientists with the United Nation’s International Day of Women and Girls in Science 😀
Thanks to our leaders Kathrin and Annette as well as our Postdoc Ljiljana for their present and future contributions to CO2 chemistry!
Congratulations to Ljiljana Pavlovic, Martin Pettersen, Ashot Gevorgyan, Janakiram Vaitla, Annette Bayer and Kathrin H. Hopmann on their recently accepted article in European Journal of Organic Chemistry!
The work investigates the factors controlling the enantioselectivity of the asymmetric Rh‐catalyzed hydrocarboxylation of α,β‐unsaturated carbonyl compounds with computational and experimental methods.
Read at:
Aya Ismael from the CHOCO research group at UiT defended her doctoral thesis titled “Method development towards synthesis of carbapenemase inhibitors” on the 26th of September 2020.
Evaluation Committee:
Professor Nina Kann participated remotely to the event, and Dr. Yvonne Piotrowski, Department of Chemistry, UiT, acted as reserve member in case she lost her connection.
The trial lecture and public defence were both live-streamed via Mediasite, and the recording was publicly available for one week.
You can read Aya’s thesis here.