Dr. Santosh C. Gadekar

Synthetic chemistry faces numerous reaction barriers to what is actually possible compared to what is theoretically possible. Catalysts are critically important to overcoming many of these barriers by reducing the energy required for a reaction to proceed, often enabling a substitution or functionalisation of simple feedstocks that can lead to high value products. Aromatic substitution, typically the replacement of a hydrogen in an aromatic ring by another moiety, is an important chemical reaction. The aromatic substitution of azines, nitrogen-containing aromatic rings, is relevant to numerous fields, yet the reactions require very complicated conditions to proceed. The EU-funded LEWIS-PYR project is developing a highly selective catalytic process to enable the electrophilic aromatic substitution of azines with mild reaction conditions, opening the door to innovation in fields from pharmaceuticals to materials science.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement 894998