This talk will broadly focus on designing and investigating main-group and/or transition-metal based redox-active molecules, targeted for use in fundamentally new bond activation chemistry and energy applications. The first part will focus on the design of redox-active metal complexes bearing redox non-innocent ligands for use in either chemical or electrochemical energy storage applications. Here, the talk will mostly center on the design of new charge carriers for solution and slurry-based redox-flow battery applications for grid-scale energy storage.
Small molecule activation often requires both protons and electrons. This includes chemical transformations key to sustainable energy and environment e.g. reduction of H+, O2, CO2 and N2. Similarly, mono-oxygenation of organic molecules using molecular oxygen, a process often described as the Holy grail of chemistry, requires protons and electrons. Erstwhile mechanistic investigations on metallo-enzyme active sites which catalyses these reactions have revealed that the proton and electron delivery often occur in distinct chemical steps and in many cases, coupled, in the same steps.