Intramolecular movement and catalysis
Coupling intramolecular movement and catalysis
Fellow USIAS : Mir Wais Hosseini
The control of intramolecular movements by external stimuli is a topic of current interest. On the other hand, catalysis play a central role in chemical transformation of matter. We propose to couple intramolecular movements with catalytic activity. Towards that, we propose to switch between active and resting states of catalysts using open and closed states of dynamic systems.
We shall develop molecular turnstiles, rotary dynamic molecules, bearing both interaction and catalytic sites. Taking advantage of their dynamic nature, molecular turnstiles might be reversibly switched between their open or closed states in a controlled manner by external stimuli such as metal binding or acid/base protonation/deprotonation processes. For such dynamic systems, the catalytic activity may be turned off in the closed state (resting state) whereas for it may be turned on for its open state. The synthesis of molecular turnstiles-catalysts will be carried out. Their dynamic behaviour in solution will be studied by multidimensional NMR technics. Their catalytic activity in solution will be investigated by different spectroscopic methods. Mechanistic studies will be carried out and structure/activity correlations will be established.