We develop porous framework, including organic-inorganic materials called metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) and organic materials called porous organic polymers (POPs) and covalent organic frameworks (COFs), for applications relevant to human health, energy, and the environment.
MOFganic Chemistry: MOFs in Organic Synthesis
Organic synthesis remains vital to the discovery of new molecules with therapeutic value. We design porous materials to tackle long-standing challenges in the synthesis of bioactive organic molecules. We also make materials to tackle related problems in medicinal chemistry, including therapeutic gas delivery. A major area of focus in our laboratory is the synthesis and functionalization of halogenated molecules, as fluorine and chlorine are each present in >20% of APIs, and the synthesis of >85% of APIs involves a chlorinated intermediate.
- Handling gaseous reagents as solids, leading to new synthetic transformations
- Novel fluorination, fluoroalkylation, and halogenation reactions
- Therapeutic gas delivery
- Selective C-H activation
- Synergistic catalysis
- User-friendly methods for MOF synthesis on scale
Reactivity-Based Chemical Separations
Chemical separations that underpin the polymer industry, such as ethylene/ethane and propylene/propane, account for 10-15% of all global energy use. Separations are also vital to mitigating anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and are important to the pharmaceutical industry as well. We are interested in leveraging the unique reactivity of organic molecules and our intuition as synthetic chemists to achieve reactivity-based separations with unprecedented selectivities. We are:
- Achieving carbon dioxide capture “beyond amines” in hydroxide-based materials
- Uncovering new reversible organic reactions for chemical separations
- Using light or electricity to reduce the costs associated with separations
- Using reactive crystallization to purify complex mixtures
- Developing separations relevant to the pharmaceutical industry
Redox-Active Organic Materials
Redox-active organic polymers are promising next-generation materials for electrochemical energy storage due to their structural tunability and flexibility. They are also intriguing platforms for heterogeneous electro(photo)catalysis. However, little is understood about how to maximize the accessibility of redox-active sites in polymeric materials. To unlock the full potential of redox-active organic materials, we are:
- Designing new catalysts for deeply reducing electro(photo)catalysis
- Developing green strategies for synthesizing redox-active polymers
- Interrogating how flexibility, dimensionality, and crystallinity impact redox properties
- Synthesizing new families of materials, including crystalline covalent organic frameworks (COFs)