Research in the Wang Lab focuses on exploring new mechanistic pathways for the activation of strong chemical bonds to address prominent challenges in homogeneous catalysis and synthetic organic chemistry. One of our main approaches is to use visible light transition metal catalysis to promote reactions or steps that may be unfavorable via thermally driven pathways. Within this general framework, we are particularly interested in the design of reactions where the transition metal species could play multiple roles in the photoexcitation and substrate activation steps. Our most recent work has focused on leveraging the excited-state reactivity of transition metal diimine (e.g., 2,2′-bipyridine) and carboxylate species for the activation of C–halogen and C–H bonds, which led to the development of light-driven selective dehalogenation and heteroarene functionalization reactions.
The Wang Lab at Marquette 