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New chemical catalysts are less expensive, more sustainable

Date:
May 18, 2015
Source:
Yale University
Summary:
Chemists have helped develop a family of new chemical catalysts that are expected to lower the cost and boost the sustainability of the production of chemical compounds used by a number of industries.
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Yale University chemists have helped develop a family of new chemical catalysts that are expected to lower the cost and boost the sustainability of the production of chemical compounds used by a number of industries.

The new catalysts are based on palladium, a rare and expensive metal. Palladium catalysts are used to form an array of chemical compounds in pharmaceuticals, plastics, agrochemicals, and many other industries. The researchers describe the new technology in an article published May 18 in the journal ACS Catalysis.

"We have developed an improved system that is less prone to deactivation. It should make the preparation of many industrially relevant compounds more economical and sustainable and may lead to new methods to prepare important compounds," said Nilay Hazari, an associate professor of chemistry at Yale and co-author of a study.

The discovery builds upon previous work by Hazari's group that identified problems in another system for palladium catalysis. Primarily those problems involved the deactivation of the catalyst.

In essence, the new system creates a better chemical infrastructure, or scaffold, upon which catalysis can take place. This means that less palladium is necessary for the process, bringing down the cost. The new catalysts are already commercially available from a number of different chemical companies and are likely to be used in the near future to make important chemical compounds.


Story Source:

Materials provided by Yale University. Original written by Jim Shelton. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


Journal Reference:

  1. Patrick R Melvin, Ainara Nova, David Balcells, Wei Dai, Nilay Hazari, Damian P Hruszkewycz, Hemali P Shah, Matthew T. Tudge. A New and Versatile Precatalyst Scaffold for Palladium Catalyzed Cross-Coupling: (η3-1-tBu-indenyl)2(μ-Cl)2Pd2. ACS Catalysis, 2015; 150506164833005 DOI: 10.1021/acscatal.5b00878

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Yale University. "New chemical catalysts are less expensive, more sustainable." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 18 May 2015. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/05/150518135135.htm>.
Yale University. (2015, May 18). New chemical catalysts are less expensive, more sustainable. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 18, 2024 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/05/150518135135.htm
Yale University. "New chemical catalysts are less expensive, more sustainable." ScienceDaily. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/05/150518135135.htm (accessed March 18, 2024).

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