S.G. Mudd Building
Stanford University
"Catalysis: Rational Design or Serendipity?"
About the Seminar
Catalysis is a foundational pillar for chemical and energy technologies; it remains both a science and an art form. The discovery of highly active, selective and environmentally benign catalytic processes is a central goal of Green Chemistry. Technologies based on fossil fuels spawned and sustain the Industrial Revolution, but the environmental impact of petroleum and coal-based economies highlight the need for alternatives to provide the energy, materials, products and technologies that improve our lives while preserving the environment for future generations.
The scientific challenges in developing alternatives to petrochemical technologies are formidable, but drive our search for selective catalysts that can convert heterogeneous biomass feedstocks into renewable chemical intermediates and materials. We have developed new catalytic methods for transforming biomass feedstocks into new monomers and chemical intermediates based on the chemoselective oxidation of polyols. Mechanistic and theoretical investigations generated new scientific insights on scope and limitations of these methods. Parallel developments in organocatalytic polymerization reactions have illuminated opportunities for the synthesis of well-defined macromolecular architectures from renewable resources. These include high molecular weight cyclic polyesters and biodegradable materials for biomedical applications.
About the Speaker
Robert Waymouth is the Robert Eckles Swain Professor of Chemistry at Stanford University. He received B.S. in Mathematics and B.A. in Chemistry from Washington and Lee University and his Ph.D. in Chemistry at the Caltech in 1987 with Professor R.H. Grubbs. He was a postdoctoral fellow with the late Professor Piero Pino at the ETH in Zurich in 1987 and joined the faculty at Stanford as an Assistant Professor in 1988. He received the Alan T. Waterman Award from the NSF in 1996, the Cooperative Research Award in Polymer Science in 2009, and EPA's Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award in 2012 with Dr. James Hedrick. He has won several university teaching awards, including the Walter J. Gores Award, the Phi Beta Kappa Teaching Award, and is currently a Bass Fellow in Undergraduate Education. His research interests are at the interface of Inorganic, Organic and Polymer Chemistry, in particular the development of new concepts in catalysis for the selective synthesis of both macromolecules and fine chemicals. Particular areas of interest include catalytic polymerization reactions, the development of organocatalytic polymerization strategies, and selective oxidation catalysis.