RESEARCH AIMS
Developing Molecular Catalysis For The 21st Century
-
The overarching goals of the Hong group are to establish mechanistic principles and design new chemical reagents and catalysts that express “non-canonical” reactivity, revealing heretofore unknown opportunities in synthesis and catalysis.
-
The Hong group will conduct the research at the interface of synthetic and physical organic, inorganic, and computational chemistry with a strong emphasis on chemical reaction development. We will apply interdisciplinary approaches based on mechanism-informed hypotheses and computer-assisted principles to reinvent novel reagents and catalysts, both of which provide outstanding solutions to unsolved problems in chemical synthesis. All members in the Hong group will be trained in synthetic chemistry, organometallic chemistry, inorganic chemistry, and computational techniques and exposed to a broad knowledge across these multiple disciplines to improve our own thoughts and research design abilities. Beyond research, all researchers in the Hong group will obtain not only scientific but also communication and leadership skills that support the future independent careers they wish to pursue.
-
The specific research directions are:
"MAIN GROUP" OPEN-SHELL CATALYSIS
Harnessing the molecular design approach to reveal unexplored 1 e- redox reactivity of main group compounds for sustainable catalysis.
UMPOLUNG CHEMISTRY USING "TRANSITION METAL"
Designing mechanistic principles to accentuate a umpolung non-ground state reactivity of d-block elements (transition metal) that unveil the new synthetic potential of feedstock chemicals.
"HETEROBIMETALLIC" PLATFORM
Conjugating two different metal identities in the single active site to unlock metal-metal cooperativity in the bond activation process with its catalytic application.