In the March issue of the international scientific journal "Catalyst Science & Technology" (impact factor 5.726) published an article by Russian scientists "Preventing Pd–NHC bond cleavage and switching from nano-scale to molecular catalytic systems: amines and temperature as catalyst activators"\"Preventing Pd-NHC bond breakdown and transition from nanoscale to molecular catalytic systems: amines and temperature as activators " This is a study by a team of chemists of the YURSPU (NPI) under the leadership of Doctor of Chemical Sciences V.M. Chernyshev, conducted jointly with the N.D. Institute of Organic Chemistry. Zelinsky RAS and Lomonosov Moscow State University, not just got into the magazine, but decorated its cover!

The article is devoted to the topic of destruction of metal complexes under the action of various reagents.  This is a well-known general problem of metal-complex catalysis, for which the best minds of the world are working to find a solution. In this regard, even such stable catalysts as palladium complexes with N-heterocyclic carbenes (Pd/NHC) are no exception. For example, palladium-catalyzed reactions are very often carried out in the presence of bases - alcoholates of alkali metals, or aliphatic amines. However, both alcoholates and relatively "soft" aliphatic amines destroy the Pd-NHC bond.

Our scientists have managed to find out that if alcoholate is used together with amine, it is possible to prevent the destruction of the catalyst. An alcoholate-amine pair at a moderate temperature very quickly converts the complex into an active form without destroying the palladium-NHC bond and triggers a catalytic reaction. And by varying the base and temperature, it is sometimes possible to purposefully change the mechanism of catalysis.

The chemists of the YURSPU (NPI) worked on the article together with the team of the Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, head of the laboratory Institute of Organic Chemistry named after N. D. Zelinsky RAS (IOH RAS) V.P. Ananikov. A world–renowned scientist has been cooperating with our university for a long time and productively, and this publication is not the first joint work of colleagues from Moscow and Novocherkassk. Valentin Pavlovich Ananikov regularly visits our university: discusses with a team of scientists the directions and results of joint work, and also reads popular science lectures for students.

The full text of the article prepared jointly is available on the journal's website Link.

We congratulate our scientists on their publication on the cover of the journal and wish them new bright successes!