Background

Enzyme-based transition metal complexes are chemical compounds that can catalyse a large number of reactions by replicating the active centre of an enzyme. Compared to enzymes, however, they have the advantage that they are easier to produce and therefore cheaper and less sensitive to organic solvents. To date, research in the field of these transition metal complexes has focussed on the fundamentals. The next step is to immobilise the complexes in order to improve the technical applicability of the systems and enable the catalyst to be reused. To this end, the complexes are to be immobilised on particles.

Tasks

In this project, a bispidine-based copper complex is to be covalently immobilised on epoxy-functionalised particles in order to enable the catalyst to be reused. For this purpose, the corresponding parameters for the immobilisation must be optimised. Subsequently, the catalytic performance in the aziridination of styrene is to be tested with the immobilisates in batch and then also in initial flow-through experiments. The focus here is primarily on the total turnover number (TTON) in order to achieve comparability of the catalytic activity with enzymes.

Practical aspects of the work are:

- Optimisation of the immobilisation of the catalyst on epoxy-functionalised particles with the aid of laboratory automation
- Catalytic experiments with free and immobilised catalyst for the conversion of styrene to the corresponding aziridine and comparison of the yields obtained
- Determination of TTON in continuously operated experiments
- Clear documentation of the results in written form and presentation in a seminar lecture