Our group studies the catalytic behaviour of Brønsted acids as well as alkali metal and alkaline earth metal complexes in diverse reactions allowing C-C, C-N and C-X bond formation. We are particularly interested in studying enantioselective processes giving access to molecular structures difficult to reach otherwise. Kinetic and mechanistic studies are implemented in order to increase our understanding of the reactivity of certain substrates in the presence of catalyst, and thus to improve the relevance of our results.
We are looking also into the use of heteroatomes such as I, S, N, P and B in catalysis. Our approach consists in the shape of chiral molecular entities with specific properties: Brønsted or Lewis acid / base, enabling novel applications in organocatalysis. In particular, other Brønsted acid catalysts and precursors hypervalent iodine-based are under development .
We work towards the development of methodologies using photoredox catalysis, which is an efficient tool to promote single-electron transfers from a photosensitizer upon exposure to light to substrate.
Furthermore, we study novel domino processes allowing to access in a single synthetic operation to complex and highly functionalized building blocks, useful in organic synthesis.
