Grace Han, Landsman Assistant Professor of Chemistry, has received a Young Investigator Research Program award from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR). The award will support her research on the optically-controlled catalyst recycling for 3 years.

Catalysis is one of the core processes in chemical industry and essential for achieving many products critical to the Department of Defense’s mission – from medicines to counter threats, to radiation-resistant polymeric coatings, and advanced fuels for aircraft. Catalysts are the key components that serve to improve reaction rates and product yields, and these costly compounds are generally disposed after one use. Various concepts for catalyst recycling, particularly using fluorous biphasic systems, have been developed to achieve cost-effective and sustainable synthetic procedures. However, the heating and cooling steps employed in the recycling process are only compatible with a limited scope of reactions and solvents.

To address this challenge, the Han group is developing a new class of biphasic catalysts that are optically activated, or precipitated, at a constant temperature by the incorporation of a photoswitch unit in the catalyst structure. Photoswitches are novel organic molecules that respond to light by changing their shape and physical properties including polarity. The significant shape and polarity change of the photoswitch unit will drastically change the solubility of catalysts in an organic solvent, which regulates the activity and recovery of catalysts. This new method of catalyst recycling is anticipated to reduce the costs as well as environmental impact of the conventional use of catalysts in various industries.