The Smallest Polycyclic Odd Alternant Hydrocarbon in Electron Transfer
Catalysis
Swadhin K Mandal
Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Kolkata 741246, India
Email: swadhin.mandal@iiserkol.ac.in
Today’s major concerns on the industrially used catalytic systems are i) high expense of catalysts; ii) toxicity of transition metals; iii) difficulties in the removal of trace amounts of toxic-metal residues from the desired product; and finally, iv) the large consumption of heavier and rare transition metals which do not meet the requirement of sustainable development. In this regard, the development of environmentally benign cost-effective catalysts is an ideal alternative. Naturally, the most recent trend in catalyst development heralded a new era using either earth-abundant, nontoxic, inexpensive metals or metal-free catalysis. This talk will discuss our recent developments [1-8] on systematically mimicking the transition metal-based catalysis using a small organic molecule. In this approach, we have used the smallest polycyclic odd alternant hydrocarbon namely phenalenyl (PLY) radicals for designing electron transfer catalysis. The emphasis will be given to how we came up with the development of this concept in catalysis, which was primarily triggered by an entirely different discipline of material science and spin-
electronics.[1, 9]