Gold-Redox | Pushing Gold beyond its common redox states

Summary
The chemical elements are central to chemistry, physics and biology. Exploring their different states and chemical bonding is thus of utmost importance. Yet, 150 years after Mendeleev recognized periodicity in the structure and properties of the elements, there is still much to discover and exploit. Indeed, some elements are still confined to a few oxidation states. This is especially true for gold which, despite major progress over the last decades, lags well behind the other transition metals. At the molecular level, only Au(I) and Au(III) complexes are known essentially.

The aim of Gold-Redox is to expand the chemical space of gold to other oxidation states that remain curiosities or are simply unknown. The bottleneck to overcome is to force gold outside its comfort zone. To this end, I will play with ligand design. I will identify ligands that enable gold to accommodate new oxidation states. Gold complexes in unprecedented forms, from Au(0) to Au(IV) and Au(V), will be designed, prepared and studied. Because of their peculiar electronic structures, these new oxidation states will open novel reactivity paths at gold. Most appealing are single-electron processes and Au(III)/Au(V) cycles.

Targeting new oxidation states and reactivities, Gold-Redox is inherently very exploratory and cutting-edge. To address this high risk-high gain challenge, I will capitalize on my expertise in highly reactive species and gold chemistry. Ligand design (I previously used to create unusual bonding situations such as with -acceptor ligands, and to emulate unprecedented reactivity of Au(I)/Au(III) complexes) will be central, as well as thorough structure-properties analyses by advanced experimental and computational methods. Gold-Redox will provide in-depth fundamental knowledge on novel gold species and will open new avenues in catalysis and photo-catalysis.
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More information & hyperlinks
Web resources: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101097537
Start date: 01-10-2023
End date: 30-09-2028
Total budget - Public funding: 2 499 540,00 Euro - 2 499 540,00 Euro
Cordis data

Original description

The chemical elements are central to chemistry, physics and biology. Exploring their different states and chemical bonding is thus of utmost importance. Yet, 150 years after Mendeleev recognized periodicity in the structure and properties of the elements, there is still much to discover and exploit. Indeed, some elements are still confined to a few oxidation states. This is especially true for gold which, despite major progress over the last decades, lags well behind the other transition metals. At the molecular level, only Au(I) and Au(III) complexes are known essentially.

The aim of Gold-Redox is to expand the chemical space of gold to other oxidation states that remain curiosities or are simply unknown. The bottleneck to overcome is to force gold outside its comfort zone. To this end, I will play with ligand design. I will identify ligands that enable gold to accommodate new oxidation states. Gold complexes in unprecedented forms, from Au(0) to Au(IV) and Au(V), will be designed, prepared and studied. Because of their peculiar electronic structures, these new oxidation states will open novel reactivity paths at gold. Most appealing are single-electron processes and Au(III)/Au(V) cycles.

Targeting new oxidation states and reactivities, Gold-Redox is inherently very exploratory and cutting-edge. To address this high risk-high gain challenge, I will capitalize on my expertise in highly reactive species and gold chemistry. Ligand design (I previously used to create unusual bonding situations such as with -acceptor ligands, and to emulate unprecedented reactivity of Au(I)/Au(III) complexes) will be central, as well as thorough structure-properties analyses by advanced experimental and computational methods. Gold-Redox will provide in-depth fundamental knowledge on novel gold species and will open new avenues in catalysis and photo-catalysis.

Status

SIGNED

Call topic

ERC-2022-ADG

Update Date

12-03-2024
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Horizon Europe
HORIZON.1 Excellent Science
HORIZON.1.1 European Research Council (ERC)
HORIZON.1.1.0 Cross-cutting call topics
ERC-2022-ADG
HORIZON.1.1.1 Frontier science
ERC-2022-ADG