New Avenues for Molecular Architectures’ Manipulation and Controlling Chemical Reactivity: Vibrationally Induced and Quantum Mechanical Tunneling Driven Chemistry

Zoom webinar | Replay on Youtube

Rui Fausto,

CLL & UC, Portugal

In the last decades, we have assisted to rapid progress on the use of vibrationally-induced chemistry as a powerful tool to manipulate molecular structures in a highly selective way, and on the application of quantum mechanical tunneling as an instrument to explore the reactivity of organic molecules in an unprecedented way. This progress has revealed new paradigms in organic chemistry reactivity, which are being now made accessible to organic chemistry synthesis practitioners. Contributions to these topics from our laboratory have been recently reviewed in a Chem Soc. Rev. article [1], where the intertwining between the two research strategies has been highlighted. In the title of that article, “IR-induced and tunneling reactions in cryogenic matrices: the (incomplete) story of a successful endeavor”, we have emphasized that the story we presented therein was an incomplete one, meaning not just that many others have given major contributions to the field, but also that our own journey was still on the way.

In this talk, the newest chapters of this story will be disclosed, where new exciting findings and unexpected results challenging interpretation are described.

Acknowledgment

This work was supported by Project PTDC/QUI-QFI/1880/2020, funded by National Funds via the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT). The Coimbra Chemistry Centre − Institute of Molecular Sciences (CQC-IMS) is supported by FCT through projects UIDB/00313/2020, UIDP/00313/ 2020 and LA/P/0056/2020, co-funded by COMPETE.

Reference

[1] R. Fausto, G. O. Ildiz and C. M. Nunes, IR-induced and tunneling reactions in cryogenic matrices: the (incomplete) story of a successful endeavor, Chem. Soc. Rev., 512 (2022) 2853-2872.