Kenichi Komura

Title : Mesoporous silica is a mysterious material: From viewpoints of its catalysis for direct amidation reaction of carboxylic acids and amines

Abstract:

Mesoporous silica is a material having a uniformed mesopore, a large specific surface area and a pore volume, and a topology reflecting its bulk architectural matrix. Almost reported catalytic reactions using mesoporous silica have been relied on the Brønsted acid site by introducing Al into the framework. We found that the siliceous mesoporous silica showed the excellent catalytic activity for direct amidation using equimolar amounts of carboxylic acids (including fatty acids) and amines, and recently reported that the catalytic activity (the initial reaction rate) uniquely depended on the pore size of the catalyst SBA-15 having P6mm topology. In this reaction, the catalyst after the calcination can be recycled and reused without loss of its catalytic activity, and successfully applied in the synthesis of procainamide. In this honorable lecture, the brief background of recent heterogeneous amidations and the selected our reported characteristic feature of this reaction system will be introduced, and unique results that we are just facing on will propose to realize not only the reason why mesoporous silica is a mysterious but also the importance of pore size when you will use mesoporous silica as a catalyst.

Biography:

Associate Prof. K. KOMURA (Ph.D.) received his bachelor of Eng. at Kansai University in 1996 (Prof. T. NISHIYAMA) and he went to a degree of master course at Nagoya University in 1996 (Prof. M. KITAMURA and Prof. R. NOYORI), then moved in 1997 at Toyohashi University of Technology for earning a Ph. Dr. under Prof. S. ITSUNO and received Ph. D. in 2002. His first carrier for researches of micro- and mesoporous materials began at Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) in Sendai joining with Dr. F. MIZUKAMI’s group in 2002. In 2004 he became an assistant professor at Gifu University with Prof. Y. SUGI and Y. KUBOTA group working on parts of shape-selective alkylation of aromatics using microporous materials. He became an associate professor in 2008 at Gifu University. His current active interests are to develop the CATALYTIC REACTIONs using micro- or mesoporous materials such as ZEOLITE and MESOPOROUS SILICA based on the concept of GREEN SUSTAINABLE CHEMISTRY.