Ruogu Li

Profile

Project Title: Cooperation towards Nobility: Equipping Nickel with Aluminium Sword (NickAl)

Supervisor:  Dr Oriol Planas

Content:  Ton-scale catalytic industrial processes currently rely on some of the rarest elements of the Earth’s crust, such as Rh, Pd, Ir, and Pt, whose supply is nowadays endangered due to geopolitical clashes and their huge environmental footprint. During the implementation of NickAl, Ruogu (RL) will develop a new approach to produce sustainable organometallic catalysts that mimic noble metals (NM) and go beyond their scope. This project will be supervised by Dr. Oriol Planas (OP).

This project will include the following activities:

• Synthesis a family of ligands to accommodate Al^I centres directly bonded to lowvalent Ni in oxidation states 0 or +1 with characterisation.
• Unravel the intrinsic reactivity of the Al-Ni platforms towards the stoichiometric activation of chemical feedstock, including Ar-X (X = F, NR₂, OR) and gases, such as H₂, NH₃ and N₂
• Develop catalytic processes based on heterobimetallic ambiphilic Al-Ni platforms to perform cross-coupling reactions and olefin functionalization.

Funding: QMUL and the China Scholarship Council

Research

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