Yoichi Hoshimoto (Osaka U)

Title: Exploring Ways to Harness N-Heterocyclic Carbenes and Triarylboranes in Organometallic and Synthetic Chemistry

Yoichi Hoshimoto
Center for Future Innovation (CFi), Department of Applied Chemistry, Faculty of Engineering, Osaka University, Japan
Abstract

Our team recently demonstrated a strategy to separate H₂ from a gaseous mixture of H₂ /CO/CO₂ /CH₄ 
that can include an excess of CO and CO₂ relative to H₂ and simultaneously store it in N 
heterocyclic compounds that act as liquid organic hydrogen carriers (LOHCs), which can be applied 
to produce H₂ by subsequent dehydrogenation.1 Our results demonstrate that LOHCs can potentially be 
used for H₂ purification in addition to their well established use in H₂ storage. Moreover, this 
work demonstrates a new aspect o f main group catalysis beyond its application as a simple 
alternative to well established transition metal catalyzed processes, i.e., the main group 
catalyzed hydrogenation of unsaturated molecules e.g. carbonyl compounds 2 under mixed gas 
conditions. Recent progress on our orig inal triarylborane catalysis will also be mentioned in my 
lecture 3,4