Shuhei Kusumoto, Department of Chemistry and Biotechnology, won a CSJ Student Presentation Award 2014

Shuhei Kusumoto in the Department of Chemistry and Biotechnology, won a CSJ Student Presentation Award 2014.

<About awarded research>

Three unprecedented reactions have been achieved by developing novel hydroxycyclopentadienyl iridium catalysts (Scheme 1-3). The first one is direct acceptorless dehydrogenation of C-C single bond adjacent to various functional groups. Although this reaction is important in organic synthesis and pharmaceutical chemistry, it has been indispensable to use stoichiometric oxidants for this transformation. In my research, a catalytic system for direct dehydrogenation of alpha, beta-position with releasing dihydrogen has been developed. The other two reactions are selective hydrogenolysis of C-O single bonds. Recently, utilization of biomaterials such as lignin and cellulose has attracted much attention. In order to achieve it, reduction of C-O single bonds which are contained in such biomaterials has been studied for long time. In my research, direct and selective hydrodeoxygenation of arenols (Scheme 2) and selective hydrogenolysis of aryl methyl ethers to afford arenols (Scheme 3) have been achieved. I hope that all these reactions will make a contribution to organic synthesis and chemical industry in the future.

<Comments>

I am really happy to receive such a honorable prize. I am grateful to Prof. Kyoko Nozaki and all the current and former group members for fruitful discussions.