Shaun Stevens

• MChem (Hons) Chemistry with Medicinal Chemistry
• Exploring the use of Heteroatom Donor Functionalised Polymer Immobilised Ionic Liquids for the Stabilisation of Palladium Nanoparticle: Application in Catalysis

The project focused on the synthesis of an ionic polymer decorated with heteroatom donor groups to explore the extent to which it could stabilize palladium nanoparticles and the influence of the heteroatom donor group on catalyst efficiency. The Suzuki-Miyaura cross-coupling was used as the benchmark reaction to test the efficiency of the new polymer-immobilised ionic liquid phase palladium nanoparticles (PdNP@PIILP). Preliminary results demonstrated that this catalyst coupled a wide range of substrate combinations with remarkable efficacy and that situ generated catalyst competed with or outperformed its preformed counterpart. Furthermore, the performance of PdNP@PIILP compared favourably with commercially available systems.  

Funding source: Royal Society of Chemistry