Organometallics for Green Catalysis

Pierre H. Dixneuf obtained his doctorate of Science in Rennes (France) with Prof Rene Dabard, on ferrocene chemistry, and carried out postdoctoral work as a CNRS researcher on the first steps of N-Heterocyclic Carbene metal complexes with Michael F. Lappert at the University of Brighton, UK. He became a professor at the University of Rennes in 1978. His research interests include both organometallic chemistry toward carbon rich complexes and innovative catalytic processes promoted by ruthenium catalysts. He developed first selective transformations of alkynes and incorporation of CO2, such as vinylcarbamates and carbonates, ruthenium-vinylidenes and –allenylidenes in catalysis, catalytic synthesis of heterocycles, alkene metathesis catalysts from allenylidenes and transformation of plant oils. He is contributing to C–H bond activation/functionalization using ruthenium(II) catalysts especially operating in water. He has co-authored more than 450 publications, co-edited 6 books and his work has been acknowledged with several prizes including: A. v Humboldt prize for Research 1990, Le Bel SFC award and Grignard-Wittig Prize (GDCh) 2000, Institut universitaire de France membership since 2000, academie des sciences IFP prize, Sacconi medal (Italy) in 2006 and Spanish-and Chinese Society of Chemistry award in 2014. He is currently an Emeritus Professor at the University of Rennes, France, where he was university vice-president for research (01-04) and founded the research “Institut de chimie de Rennes” in 2000. 

Jean-Francois Soule received his MSc in molecular chemistry from the University Paul Sabatier, Toulouse (France). Then, he completed his PhD in 2007 working on the Petasis reaction applied on the synthesis of biological interest molecules under the supervision of the Prof. Jean-Marie Beau, at the Institut de Chimie des Substances Naturelles, Gif-sur- Yvette (France). In 2010, he joined the group of the Prof. Shu Kobayashi at the University of Tokyo (Japan) as a postdoctoral fellow, where he worked on the development of heterogeneous nanoparticles to catalyze organic transformations, namely tandem oxidation using gold nanoparticles for the selective synthesis of amides or imines from simple alcohols and amines, then cross-coupling reactions using nickel nanoparticles. In October 2013, he was appointed as "Charge de Recherche" CNRS at the University of Rennes in the group of Dr. Henri Doucet. His main interest focuses on the development of sustainable chemistry, notably, transition-metals catalyzed C–H functionalizations.