These chemicals have been under research for years

Jul 9, 2012 09:11 GMT  ·  By
Caltech chemists in the lab of Nobel laureate Bob Grubbs have developed a new class of catalysts
   Caltech chemists in the lab of Nobel laureate Bob Grubbs have developed a new class of catalysts

Scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), in Pasadena, announce that they were recently able to develop a new class of catalysts, which has been under research for years. A catalyst is a substance that makes it easier for other chemicals to interact.

Catalysts can be used to make a chemical reaction occur either slower or faster, or to prod two substances that would normally not interact towards doing so. As such, they are of extreme importance for creating plastics, perfumes, pharmaceuticals, pheromones and a host of other compounds.

The particular class of catalysts developed at Caltech – after more than 15 years of study – are of great use towards synthesizing a massive range of chemicals via environmentally friendly methods. The chemists behind the study worked in the lab of expert Bob Grubbs.

The scientist holds an appointment as the Victor and Elizabeth Atkins professor of chemistry at Caltech, and is the winner of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, alongside experts Richard R. Schrock and Yves Chauvin.

According to Grubbs, the new catalyst class contains the metal ruthenium, and acts on a type of chemical reaction called olefin metathesis. This research is part of the same line that won the expert the Nobel Prize 7 years ago.

“Our original catalysts have found many applications, but one of the deficiencies was the lack of control of the geometry of the double bond,” the investigator explains. He adds that the newly-developed chemicals could be used to synthesize large chemical rings (macrocycles) in the future.

Macrocycles are used extensively for chemical fragrances, especially musks, as well as for a large number of cancer drugs. “We're hoping that our new catalysts will make it possible to synthesize these compounds using metathesis – a proven green reaction,” Grubbs explains.

The long-term Caltech investigation is supported via grants from the US National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Mitsui Chemicals, Inc., the Department of Defense (DOD), and the Swiss National Science Foundation.

Grubbs and his colleagues have thus far published a significant number of research papers on this topic, most of them in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS). They will continue to work along these lines for the foreseeable future, in hopes of improving the new catalysts even further.