Carenco Lab

Research focus

ERC Starting Grant · 2017

Nanoparticles as Partners in Frustrated Lewis Pairs: Boosting the Surface Reactivity of Inorganic Nanoparticles

Associating bulky and strong Lewis acid and base creates a Frustrated Lewis Pair (FLP). Traditionally, both FLP partners are molecules. Molecular FLPs have shown excellent abilities to catch and dissociate small molecules such as H2 in a heterolytic way, under mild conditions. The driving force is the destabilization of the initial acid-base adduct, sterically frustrated: it liberates a reactive pocket that catches the small molecule guest, and strongly lowers the activation energy for bond dissociation. The pristine and challenging concept of NanoFLP consists in replacing one of the molecular FLP partner, either the acid or the base, by an inorganic nanoparticle: the other molecular…

From the public funding record at EU CORDIS. Describes the funded project, not the reviews below.