Applying green chemistry principles to iron catalysis

February 21, 2024

At the Leibniz Institute for Catalysis(LIKAT) in Rostock, Dr. Johannes Fessler has developed new methods for the synthesis of drug precursors using catalysts made of iron, manganese and cobalt. He has reported on it in Chemical Science, together with his doctoral supervisor Prof Dr. Matthias Beller and his research group leader Dr. Kathrin Junge. The article shows that how a complex active ingredient candidate based on pyrrole, a common drug precursor, is created from "simple starting materials" with the help of an acid-tolerant homogeneous iron catalyst and at room temperature.

Noble metals are expensive due to their rare occurrence, their extraction is costly and they release large quantities of the greenhouse gas CO2. One of the goals of "green" chemistry is therefore to dispense with such noble metals in organometallic catalysis in the future. On the one hand, non-noble metal catalysis helps to conserve resources. Iron is abundant, making up 5% of the Earth's crust. And after iron and titanium, manganese is the most common transition metal on Earth. On the other hand, base metals are often less stable in catalytic processes than catalysts made of noble metals. In addition, “they usually work at high temperatures and pressures in the area I am researching," added by Dr. Fessler. In this respect, Dr. Johannes Fessler's work is a great success.

From: phys.org.