* Astronomy

Researchers at the University of Amsterdam (UvA) have created chiral palladium metal.

The most powerful tool in homogeneous transition metal catalysis is ligand design and optimisation. However, as the complexity of the ligands increases, synthetic routes towards these ligands are generally more difficult and time-consuming. Supramolecular chemistry provides all the tools to facilitate the synthesis of new ligands for transition metal catalyst systems. In this thesis we describe two strategies in supramolecular transition metal catalysis which result from the introduction of supramolecular chemistry in traditional transition metal catalysis. The first strategy comprises the encapsulation of a transition metal catalyst by the formation of template-assisted multi-component assemblies resulting in catalysts in specific nano-environments. The second strategy comprises the formation of self-assembled chelating (hetero)bidentate ligands using supramolecular interactions. In the introduction, illustrative examples of the recent developments in the rapidly growing field of supramolecular ligands in transition metal catalysis are discussed.
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