Research Highlights

NKU RESEARCHERS REVEAL A NEW MECHANISM OF ORGANIC PHOTOCHEMICAL REACTION

According to a recent paper published in JACS, Nankai University, SIOC at UCAS, and Beijing Normal University collaboratively developed a solid difluorocarbene precursor, difluoromethane bis(sulfonium ylide), with a symmetrical structure of E-CF2-E. This article reports that a new mechanism of organic photochemical reactions was discovered by this team, in which difluorocarbene is generated by spin-forbidden excitation under visible light irradiation.The project was led by Prof. Liu Tianfei of t

Asymmetric Catalysis:

Prof. Qilin Zhou has developed a new type of chiral ligands with spirobiindane skeleton. The chiral spiro ligands are highly efficient for the catalytic asymmetric hydrogenations, carbon-carbon bond-forming reactions, and carbene insertion reactions. Chiral spiro ligands have been commercialized and widely used in the syntheses of chiral compounds and the productions of chiral drugs. Website: http://zhou.nankai.edu.cn

Pesticide Science

Prof. Zheng-Ming Li has devoted to basic research of green pesticide chemistry. He with his colleagues established National Pesticide Engineering Research Center in Nankai University in 1995. He led his team to invent a novel eco-friendly herbicide Monosulfuron,with independent intellectual properties,has obtained State certificates to apply in millet fields in China. Monosulfuronhas resolved the particular weed problem hitherto unsolved in millet planting. It was recorded as the first commerc

Energy Materials

Prof. Jun Chen focuses on energy chemistry with inorganic and organic nanostructures/nanomaterials to probe and understand the reaction mechanism, charge tranProf. Jun Chen focuses on energy chemistry with inorganic and organic nanostructures/nanomaterials to probe and understand the reaction mechanism, charge transfer, and mass transport. He has rationally designed and synthesized a variety of functional materials for the application of efficient energy storage conversion such as batteries,

Physical Organic Chemistry

Prof. Jin-Pei Cheng has developed various efficient methods for measuring bond energies. On the basis of systematic determinations of many series of chemical bonds in conventional molecular solvents or in ionic liquids, Cheng was able to disclose a number of unknown phenomena and rules of theoretical or practical importance in chemistry and life sciences. Recently, he with team built the internet Bond-energy Databank (iBonD) for free access (see: http://ibond.nankai.edu.cn or http://ibond.chem

Hydrgenase Mimics

Prof. Licheng Song has developed a variety of synthetic methods for preparing a series of novel [FeFe]-, [NiFe]- and [Fe]-hydrogenase model complexes. Besides structures and physico-chemical properties, the H2 (a clean and renewable energy source) production function catalyzed by such biomimetic models has been systematically studied. Prof. Licheng Song has developed a variety of synthetic methods for preparing a series of novel [FeFe]-, [NiFe]- and [Fe]-hydrogenase model complexes. Besides st

Polymer and Nano Carbon Functional Materials:

Efficient green energy technology, including energy conversion and storage, has been and will be one of the most important topics for all the societies now and in future. With this, using Nano Carbon (graphene and nanotubes) and Organic/Polymeric materials, Prof. Yongsheng Chen’s group has been pursuing the design, synthesis and scalable applications of these materials for green energy conversion and storage (OPV, Battery, Supercapacitor, etc.).More information can be found at website: http://

Organic Supramolecular Chemistry

Prof. Yu Liu’s group study molecular recognition and the molecular assembly of synthetic macrocyclic receptors. The focus is the non-covalent interactions between hosts crown ethers, cyclodextrins, calixarenes, cucurbiturils and guests. They have constructed several novel supramolecular assemblies and functional supramolecular systems with tunable self-assembling behaviors and photophysical properties, which can be applied in drug delivery, catalysis, enzyme mimics and so on. For more details,

Chemistry of Coordination Space

Prof. Xian-He Bu’s research focuses on the chemistry of ‘coordination space’, the space in which the coordination bonding plays an important role in its structure and properties. Through his systematic research of coordination complexes, in-depth understanding of coordination interaction is achieved, based on which advanced targeted construction strategies and methods for functional coordination space have been developed. Hundreds of hybrid materials showing distinctive structures and properti

New QD-based methodologies for single virus tracking and visual detection

Quantum dots (QDs) as a kind of fluorescent semiconductor nanocrystal possess excellent optical properties, such as high brightness and photostability. Prof. Dai-Wen Pang’s group proposed a spatiotemporal coupling strategy for synthesis of QDs in live cells and further expanded the mode of synthesis from live cells to cell-free quasi-bio-systems. On this basis, they established methods for synthesizing heavy metals-free QDs in the second near-infrared window (from 1000nm to 2100nm) and develop

Chemical Biology

Prof. Zhen Xi’s group developed a quantitative structure-activity relationship for biomacromolecular interaction, especially on pesticide selectivity, mutational resistance, enzymatic activity and PPI. They explored the mode of action for pesticide development, including structure biology of AHAS and PPO, TMV virus assembly, and ribosome translocation. They also developed the basic techniques for RNA therapy and RNA-based crop protection.

Thermodynamics and Kinetics

Professor Xiao-Qing Zhu has studied the thermodynamics and kinetics of various chemical reactions, especially, hydride transfer reactions for more than 30 years. In thermodynamic study, he developed a high-accurate experimental method to measure thermodynamic hydricities of various metal-free hydrides and by which the thermodynamic hydricities of more than 2000 metal-free hydrides in acetonitrile have been determined systematically. He developed an efficient thermodynamic platform to directly

Chemometric Method

Prof. Xueguang Shao developed chemometric methods for near infrared (NIR) spectra, including the methods of signal processing, modeling and calibration model transfer. New strategies were proposed for enhancing the sensitivity of NIR spectral analysis by combining the preconcentration techniques and chemometric approaches. Recent works were focused on developing new methods for exploring the information from temperature dependent NIR spectra of aqueous systems.Website: http://chinfo.nankai.edu

Functional Coordination Chemistry

Prof. Peng Cheng’s group has systematically studied functional coordination compounds, including the synthetic strategies, magnetic properties, luminescent sensing properties and biochemical applications. They also developed new electrochemical applications of molecule-based system and Organic-inorganic hybrid materials for CO2 fixation.

Nano Molecular Chaperones

Professor Shi Linqis group has constructed nano molecular chaperones through controllable assembly of block copolymers. Nanochaperones can regulate protein folding, stabilize protein structure, inhibit protein misfolding and mediate protein transport.

Organometallic Chemistry

Research in Prof. Chunming Cui’ s group focused on the synthesis and structures of main-group and rare-earth compounds and their applications in synthesis, functional materials and catalysis. His group are particularly interested in the boron and silicon carbene analogues, multiply bonded species and conjugated and aromatic heterocycles of boron and silicon as well as low-coordinate rare-earth complexes with high activity and selectivity for catalytic applications. We have developed some inter

Solid-state NMR

Prof. Pingchuan Sun has developed advanced solid-state NMR methods for the study of multiscale structure and dynamics of macromolecules and provided new insight into the structure-property relationship and molecular design of advanced polymer materials. He also proposed new bio-inspired strategies to prepare high-performance polymer materials and their nanocomposites.Website: http://sunpingchuan.polymer.cn/

Synthesis of Natural Products

Prof. Jianhua Xie has developed several highly efficient catalytic asymmetric hydrogenation of ketones with chiral spiro ruthenium and iridium catalysts for the synthesis of chiral alcohols with contiguous stereocenters. Using these highly efficient methods several bioactive natural products including ()-galanthamine, ()-hapalindole Q, ()-gracilamine, ()-goniomitine, and mulinane-type diterpenoids were synthesized in a concise and/or divergent fashion with high efficiency and enantioselect

Catalytic Organic Synthesis

Prof. Shou-Fei Zhu’s group interests in the development of advanced synthetic methodology as well as synthetic theory through developing catalysts and reactions. Their studies mainly focus on catalytic organic synthesis, particularly those involving hydrogen transfer as key steps. They proposed the concept of chiral proton shuttle catalyst, which realized a variety of challenging asymmetric proton transfer reactions. They developed a catalytic B-H bond insertion reaction, which provides a new

Controlled/Living Free Radical Polymerization

Prof. Wangqing Zhang’s group focuses on the synthesis and applications of novel polymers by controlled/living free radical polymerization techniques, including reversible addition fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) and atom transfer radical polymerisation (ATRP) polymerization. They have designed several kinds of stimuli-responsive polymers which can response to temperature, CO2, pH and light, and etc. The typical examples of thermoresponsive polymers include poly[N-[2-(diethylamino)ethyl]acr