A Boulder Scientific Distinguished Lecture 

About the Talk:

Design and development of sustainable, environmentally benign catalytic reactions for organic synthesis and for energy-related processes are major goals of current catalysis. We have developed new efficient, environmentally benign reactions catalyzed by pincer-type transition metal complexes, including complexes of earth-abundant metals. Several of these reactions either produce hydrogen gas or consume it and proceed by a new mode of metal-ligand cooperation. Metal-complex catalyzed reactions, in which most of the catalytic activity is ligand-based, were also developed.  Various synthetic and energy-relaed applications based on these catalytic reactions, such as several acceptorless dehydrogenative coupling reactions, selective dehydrogenative oxidation of organic compounds using water as oxidant, and new liquid organic hydrogen carriers (LOHCs), will be described.

About the Speaker:

David Milstein is a Professor of Chemistry at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, where he founded and was Head of the Kimmel Center for Molecular Design.
He received his PhD in chemistry from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1976 with Prof. Blum, and performed post-doctoral research at Colorado State University, with Prof. Stille, leading to the well-known C-C bond-forming Stille Reaction. In 1979 he joined DuPont Company’s Central Research and Development Department, where he became a Group Leader, and in 1987 he moved to the Weizmann Institute of Science. His research interests include the design and development of efficient, environmentally benign and sustainable reactions for organic synthesis and energy applications, mainly catalyzed by pincer-type complexes. His awards include the ACS Award in Organometallic Chemistry and the ACS Somorjai Award in Creative Research in Catalysis; the Gold Medal of the Israel Chemical Society; the Israel Prize (Israel’s highest honor); the ENI Environmental Protection Prize; and the IUPAC- Zhejiang International Award for Advancements in Green Chemistry. He is a member of the national academies of Israel, the USA, Germany and the UK Royal Society.