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  Understanding and Directing Proton Transport   Completed Research Projects in the DV Group   Funding Sources (Past and Present)
 
What controls the movement of protons between a series of basic sites? The basicity of the site? or how far the sites are? or both? Does the proton jump from one site to other or do the bonds readjust? These questions are fundamental to our understanding of how protons move in many natural and synthetic systems.

In hydrogen fuel cells, hydrogen gets oxidized at the anode and the resultant protons need to move to the cathode to facilitate the reduction of oxygen to water. A membrane separates the anode compartment from the cathode compartment. This membrane, currently Nafion, should rapidly transport hydrogen ion (H+) but not hydrogen (H2) molecule. Strategies to improve current membranes are largely Edisonian.

Our approach involves creating rigid scaffolds that can be systematically tuned to study the effect of basicity and distance on proton transport. For proton transport in small molecules, we collaborate with Auerbach's group at UMass Amherst and Johnson's group at Yale University. For oligomeric helical systems, we collabrate with Barnes' group at UMass Amherst.

Impact of our Work: Fundamental understanding of proton transport, Effective membranes for Efficient Proton Transport, Efficient Fuel cell Membranes.

For more details, see our Group Wiki site.

Also see NSF Center for Fueling the Future at UMass Amherst Site for efforts at UMass to solve the proton transport problem.

 

Copper-based Catalysts for Cross-Coupling Reactions (1999-2007)

  • Discovered synthetic protocols for the use of copper(I) complexes as catalysts for the cross-coupling of aryl halides with various nucleophiles.
  • Two of our complexes, Cu(phenanthroline)(PPh3)Br (Cat. No. 29-4000) and [Cu(phenanthroline)(PPh3)2]NO3 (Cat. No. 29-6000) are available from Strem Chemicals.

Recovery and Reuse of Transition Metal Catalysts (1999-2005)

  • Discovered that the linker between the soluble polymer and the catalysts had impact on the stereoselectivity of enantioselective reactions.
  • Discovered that a sohxlet process can be combined with a dialysis membrane to rapidly recover and reuse transition metal catalysts.

Higher Dimensional Electronic Materials (1999-2005)

  • Synthesized various pi-conjugated molecules and studied them as ligands for multi-dimensional electronic structures.
  • Showed that two dimensional electronic networks can be obtained through directed assmebly of molecules.

For more details, see our Group Wiki site.

  

 

  • National Science Foundation
  • American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund
  • National Institute of Aerospace
  • Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation
  • UMass Commerical Venutures and Intellectual Properties Fund
  • Bristol-Myers Squibb
  • Pfizer