Presentation

Our group's research interests range over a variety of topics within the fields of organometallic, main-group and physical organic chemistry.

Our current research focuses on the development of structurally unique nitrogen- and phosphorus containing Lewis bases and new carbon- and boron-containing Lewis acids.
We investigate their reactivity and properties, and then combine them in pairs for creating new bifunctional acid–base catalysts. Creating new chemical entities based on main-group elements to mimic the rich and multifaceted chemistry of transition-metal complexes is an exciting challenge and requires a combination of state-of-the-art synthetic and computational chemistry.
The reactivities of these metallomimetic molecular systems are investigated quantitatively by kinetics and thermodynamic measurements which allows the subsequent fine-tuning and optimization of their structures and their efficient implementations in new chemical processes (hydrogenation reactions, CH borylation reactions, small molecules activation).
The development of ground-breaking main-group catalysts based on the most abundant elements in the earth crust will have a wide impact on chemical energy transformation and storage, as well as on bulk and fine chemical synthesis.