Ligand Based C-H Bond Weakening for Synthesis and Electrocatalysis with Earth-Abundant Metals The selective, efficient, and sustainable activation of carbon-hydrogen bonds continues to be a critical area of research. Current synthetic methodologies heavily rely on transition metal catalysts to mediate the reactivity of C-H bonds for making medicines, fuels, agrochemicals, and materials. Broadly speaking, we are interested in leveraging C-H bonds housed within chelating ligand frameworks to understand the fundamentals of C-H activation and discover new (electro)catalytic transformations.
Supramolecular Gels & Polymers: From Superhydrophobic and Slippery Surfaces to Directional Transport along Gradients In the first part, a very simple production procedure for superhydrophobic and slippery surfaces is reported. The deposition of a gel leads to the surface roughness needed for superhydrophobicity and in a way mimics the Lotus leaf effect. The second part of the talk discusses approaches to chemically and light-switchable mono- and multilayers of rotaxanes on gold surfaces. With alternating layer-by-layer deposition of the tetralactam macrocycles or the corresponding rotaxanes and various connecting metal ions, coordination oligomers with well-defined sequences can be built that are anchored on one end on the surface. The third part discusses how to use a supramolecular polymer self-assembling from easy-to-synthesize monomers as a supramolecular machine for the directional transport of particles as their cargo over millimeter distances.
