Inventing New Reactions for a Green Economy
Chao-Jun Li1,*
1Department of Chemistry, McGill University, 801 Sherbrooke Street West, Montreal, Quebec H3A0B8, Canada
Historically, one relies on Mother Nature to provide all the material needs of society. The development of modern chemistry has enabled us to transform our natural resources as well as to create new matters from existing ones to benefit the society, which has greatly enriched our modern living and increased the quality of life. The heroic creativity, imagination, and innovation of chemists have touched every corner of our daily life from the colorful clothes that we wear to the ever changing electronic products that we “play” with, from the pharmaceutical agents to combat life threatening diseases to synthetic fertilizers to boost crop productions for the world needs, from the rapid growing number of skyscrapers to the ever increasing speed of transportation. However, the state-of-arts of chemical industry is facing increasing challenges from resources, safety and environmental concerns.
Our future sustainability mandates fundamental innovations in sciences and technologies that can directly transform readily available feedstocks (more preferably renewable ones) and directly without the need for extensive manipulations could result in a positive impact on the three key interconnected pillars of sustainability: environment (waste minimization), resources, and energy. As part of this endeavor, we have explored new fundamental reactions that can drastically shorten synthetic steps, more directly transform renewable biomass and abundant feedstocks (CO2 and methane) into high valued products, and harvest solar light by chemical means and utilize photo-energy as energy input for chemical conversions. These new reactivities potentially provide some food-for-thought for the next generation of fundamental molecular transformations with an eye on our future sustainability.
Keywords: green chemistry, green economy, new chemical reactivities, sustainability
References:
[1]. Li, C.-J.; Trost, B. M. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci (USA), 2008, 105, 13197.
[2]. Li, C.-J Acc. Chem. Res. 2002, 35, 533.
[3]. Li, C.-J. Acc. Chem. Res. 2010, 43, 581.
[4]. Li, C.-J. Chem, 2016, 1, 423-437.
[5]. Li, C.-J. Acc. Chem. Res. 2009, 42, 335.
李朝军，加拿大皇家科学院院士，发展中国家科学院院士(TWAS)，中国化学会会士，美国科学促进会会士(AAAS)，美国化学学会会士，英国皇家化学会会士，加拿大化学化工学会会士，加拿大绿色化学首席科学家。郑州大学学士(1983)，中国科学院化学所硕士 (1988)，加拿大麦吉尔大学博士(1992)，斯坦福大学博士后(1992-1994)，1994-2003年为美国杜兰大学化学系助理，副，正教授。2003年起任加拿大麦吉尔大学化学系E. B. Eddy 教授，加拿大NSERC绿色化学CREATE中心主任， 魁北克省绿色化学和催化中心联合主任等。李教授获得了美国NSF Career Award (1997)、中国海外杰出青年基金(2000)、美国总统绿色化学挑战奖(2001)、加拿大绿色化学与工程奖(2010)等. 他开创的A3偶联反应收录在《Name reactions》， 交叉脱氢偶联反应(CDC)收录在《有机人名反应、试剂与规则》的书中。任英国皇家化学会（2004-2020）《Green Chemistry》及 2020-《Chem.Commun.》 副主编。
