Vaidhyanathan Ramamurthy
University of Miami, FL·Chemistry
Many chemical reactions need toxic solvents and harsh reagents, and they often yield messy mixtures of products. Nature avoids this by holding molecules inside tightly fitting pockets, such as the active sites of enzymes, where reactions can run cleanly.
- Fields
Chemistry
Materials Science
- Topics
photochemistry
supramolecular chemistry
host-guest chemistry
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Aug 2027
What they work on
- Use water-soluble synthetic host molecules with cavities a few angstroms wide as reaction containers that hold water-insoluble organic molecules during light-driven reactions in water.
- Find conditions under which confined photochemical reactions, including additions, fragmentations and oxidations, yield high-value products selectively, sustainably and catalytically.
- Study electron- and proton-transfer reactions of confined molecules, and work out their mechanisms using ultrafast spectroscopy and theoretical calculations.
More about the research
This project borrows that idea. It aims to control what light-activated molecules do by trapping them in cavities only slightly larger than they are. Light supplies the energy and water serves as the solvent. The long-term goal is to find efficient ways to capture solar energy and store it as chemical energy.
Why it matters
Running light-driven reactions in water inside molecular containers could give chemists cleaner, more selective ways to make valuable compounds without toxic solvents or reagents. Over the long term, the work aims to inform efficient ways to capture solar energy and store it in chemical bonds, which matters for sustainable chemical manufacturing and renewable energy.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Bruce Gibb
Tulane University of Louisiana, LA·Chemistry
Develop a mild catalytic process for adding iodine to aromatic rings in water that works across a broad range of starting molecules, using supramolecular hosts and the hydrophobic effect.
Mark Lipke
Rutgers University-New Brunswick, NJ·Chemistry
Measure how water trapped inside redox-active porphyrin nanocages changes the acidity of acid-bearing guest molecules and their combined proton-electron transfer, using electrochemistry and 1H NMR to quantify water uptake.
Christopher Hartley
Miami University-Oxford, OH·Chemistry
Determine how chains that combine attractive and repulsive interactions within a single molecule fold, programming structure by inserting pyrazine-2,3-diyl units, nitrogen-containing aromatic rings, into ortho-phenylene sequences.
The school
University of Miami: 30 labs on PI Pages, $559M a year on research, 297 research doctorates a year.
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