North Polytechnic Advances in Aluminum Catalysis

Professor Yang Zhi of the School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering of Beijing Institute of Technology took the lead in the international development of non-precious metal aluminum catalyzed organic synthesis reactions, designed and synthesized special structures of aluminum hydrogen compounds for catalyzing alkyne, alcohols, amines, and mercaptans The hydroboration yielded a very high catalytic yield (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2015, 54, 10225, IF "11.7, Hot Paper"), (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2016, 138, 2548 , IF="12.1, ESI Highly Cited Paper", Synthesis of novel organoaluminum compounds containing Al-OC, Al-OS, and Al-ON structural fragments, which have been successfully used to efficiently catalyze the addition reaction of carbonyl with TMSCN , and systematically studied the effect of different substituents contained in each catalyst on the catalytic effect (Chemistry-An European Journal. 2016, 22, 6932). The results of this series of studies have led to the recent upsurge of research on the homogeneous catalytic organic reactions of the main group metals.

In view of the recent major progress in the homogeneous catalytic organic field of the main group metals, the research group was invited to publish the title “Soluble Aluminum Hydrides Function as Catalysts in Deprotonation, Insertion, and in the International Chemical Journal of the Top Issue Journal” (Influence Factor 12.9). The "Activation Reactions" paper was recently published online (DOI: 10.1016/j.ccr.2017.03.017). On the basis of summarizing the molar ratio reaction during the activation of unsaturated bond of Al-hydrogen compounds, the initiation mechanism of the catalytic reaction of organoaluminum compounds was explained. At the same time, an important idea of ​​the design of organic ligands for metal active centers and the choice of substituents was proposed. It is of great reference value for the development of catalytic chemistry of the main group in the future. Dr. Li Wenling, a doctoral student of the research group, was the first author of the paper.