Chao-Jun Li

Chao-Jun "C.J." Li is E. B. Eddy Professor of Chemistry and Canada Research Chair in Green Chemistry at McGill University, Montréal. He works on organic transformation applied to Green chemistry, including C-H activation, reactions in water and photochemistry.

Education[]

C.J. Li was born in 1963, and got his BSc from Zhengzhou university (1979–1983), and completed his MSc. in organic synthesis at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (1985–1988) with Prof. T.H. Chan.^[1] He then moved to McGill University (Montréal, Québec) to do his PhD (1989–1992) with Prof. T.H. Chan again, along with Prof. David Harpp, and went on a NSERC-funded postdoc with Prof. Barry Trost at Stanford University in the United States (1992–1994).

Career and research[]

C.J. Li started as an assistant professor at Tulane University in 1994, and attained the title of Professor of Chemistry in 2000. He then moved in 2003 to McGill University, where he obtained a Canada Research Chair (Tier I) in Green Chemistry.^[2] He has also been the director of NSERC CREATE for Green Chemistry (2012–2018), the director of CFI Infrastructure for Green Chemistry and Green Chemicals (2008–2018) and has been the co-director of the FQRNT Center for Green Chemistry and Catalysis since 2009.

C.J. Li's research encompasses various aspects of green chemistry applied to organic chemistry: organometallics, catalysis (thermal and light-based). Most notably, he is known for using water as a reaction media^[3] for various chemical reactions (hydrogenation,^[4] Grignard type-reactions, e.g. the discovery of indium-mediated allylation in water,^[5][6]). Li originated the concepts of Aldehyde-Alkyne-Amine Coupling (A3 coupling reaction) and the cross dehydrogenative coupling (CDC Reaction). His work on GaN nanowires as photocatalysts for the conversion of methane into benzene was covered by Phys.org in 2015, leaving prospects for hydrogen storage.^[7] Subsequently, his team showed that they were also able to convert methanol into ethanol.^[8] He also made breakthroughs in using hydrazones as organometallic surrogates in nucleophilic addition and cross-coupling,^[9] and on the direct amination of phenol derivatives.^[10]

Selected publications[]

Reactions in water:

• The Barbier–Grignard-type arylation of aldehydes using unactivated aryl iodides in water^[11]
• Silver‐Catalyzed Hydrogenation of Aldehydes in Water^[12]

A3 coupling reaction^[13]

Cross dehydrogenative coupling^[14]

GaN photocatalysts

• Photoinduced Conversion of Methane into Benzene over GaN Nanowires^[15]
• Direct Catalytic Methanol-to-Ethanol Photoconversion via Methyl Carbene^[16]

Hydrazones as organometallic reagents surrogates:

• Aldehydes as alkyl carbanion equivalents for additions to carbonyl compounds^[17]

References[]