Martin Jakoobi

In the early 1990s, the seminal work by B

Considering the climate, societal and health-related current and emerging issues facing the world, our group, as part of the (nano-)material science community, will play a part in providing materials and technology that can tackle these issues

Aromatic C-H activation in alkylarenes is a key step for the synthesis of functionalized organic molecules from simple hydrocarbon precursors. Known examples of such C-H activations often yield mixtures of products resulting from activation of the least hindered C-H bonds. Here we report highly selective ortho-C-H activation in alkylarenes by simple iridium complexes. We demonstrate that the capacity of the alkyl substituent to override the typical preference of metal-mediated C-H activation for the least hindered aromatic C-H bonds results from transient insertion of iridium into the benzylic C-H bond. This enables fast iridium insertion into the ortho-C-H bond, followed by regeneration of the benzylic C-H bond by reductive elimination. Bulkier alkyl substituents increase the ortho selectivity. The described chemistry represents a conceptually new alternative to existing approaches for aromatic C-H bond activation.

We report the selective oxidative addition of benzylic C–H bonds in industrially important methylarenes using rare η ⁴ -arene iridium complexes.

The unexpected formation of cross-linked silicon materials was observed via hydrosilylation of unsaturated epoxides with polymethylhydrosiloxane using Co₂(CO)₈ as a catalyst.

Co ₂ (CO) ₈ was found to be an effective and structurally simple catalyst for the functionalization of polymethylhydrosiloxane into functional silicone fluids using terminal alkenes and into cross-linked silicone materials using unconventional tethers.

The detailed mechanism of iridium-mediated C–C cleavage in unactivated arenes reveals the key factors enabling the process and helps predict the scope of the cleavage reaction.