Such is the case for UC Santa Barbara chemistry professor Yang Yang, who builds his research around discovering novel biocatalytic methods, processes that facilitate chemical reactions with biocatalysts from evolved natural proteins.
“The goal was a new class of metal-carbene chemistry for carbon-carbon bond formation,” Yang said.
“This project is exciting because the field of transitional metal carbene chemistry has been developing for several decades, and yet we are able to come up with an entirely new mechanism for metal carbene-radical cross-coupling that is potentially general and useful.”Indeed, according to Yang, transition metal carbene chemistry — chemistry that involves the element carbon and the metals that exist in the middle “block” of the periodic table — has a long history.
“It has many important applications, and mechanistically, it’s important because transition metal carbenes are very reactive intermediates,” he said.
“Intermediates” are highly reactive molecular species that are produced during the process of a reaction for the purpose of enabling the next step in the reaction.
In an effort to open the door to new and useful products, chemistry researchers are on the continual lookout for processes that unlock important molecules and the bonds that can put them together.
Such is the case for UC Santa Barbara chemistry professor Yang Yang, who builds his research around discovering novel biocatalytic methods, processes that facilitate chemical reactions with biocatalysts from evolved natural proteins.
Published in the journal Nature Catalysis, Yang’s research group and collaborators at the University of Pittsburgh and Florida State University have developed a new type of reaction, one that employs a mechanism that was until now unknown to both native enzymatic and synthetic chemistry.
“The goal was a new class of metal-carbene chemistry for carbon-carbon bond formation,” Yang said. “This project is exciting because the field of transitional metal carbene chemistry has been developing for several decades, and yet we are able to come up with an entirely new mechanism for metal carbene-radical cross-coupling that is potentially general and useful.”
Indeed, according to Yang, transition metal carbene chemistry — chemistry that involves the element carbon and the metals that exist in the middle “block” of the periodic table — has a long history.
“It has many important applications, and mechanistically, it’s important because transition metal carbenes are very reactive intermediates,” he said. “Intermediates” are highly reactive molecular species that are produced during the process of a reaction for the purpose of enabling the next step in the reaction. Though fleeting in their existence, the reaction pivots around their presence.
