Foto del docente

Carla Carfagna

Associate Professor

Department of Industrial Chemistry "Toso Montanari"

Academic discipline: CHIM/03 General and Inorganic Chemistry

Curriculum vitae

After earning the PhD in Chemistry at the University of Milano, Italy (23/09/1987) she was nominated Assistant Professor (Ricercatore Universitario) for General and Inorganic Chemistry in 1987 at the University of Urbino (with tenure from 1990). Since 1996 to 2014, at the same university, she has held the course of General and Inorganic Chemistry at the Faculty of Science and Technology (B.Sc in Biotechnology). Since 1999 to 2014 she has been in charge of the organometallic chemistry research team at the University of Urbino, Department of Biomolecular Sciences.

Since 03/11/2014 she is a CHIM/03 associate Professor at Bologna University, Department of Industrial Chemistry “Toso Montanari”.

She was the leader of the Urbino Research Unit for the following Research Projects of National Interest: PRIN 1998, PRIN 2000, PRIN 2003, PRIN 2006, PRIN 2008.

Since 1997 she has been referee of the Journal of the American Chemical Society and Organometallics.

Research experience in foreign Universities:

from 1991 to 1993 she covered the role of research coordinator in the staff of Prof. M. Green, at the School of Chemistry of the University of Bath (UK); later (1995-1996) she worked at the Laboratoire de Chimie de Coordination of the CNRS in Toulouse (France) within the framework of the Human Capital and Mobility Program of the European Union.

 Main Research activities:

a) Synthesis, characterization and reactivity of transition metal complexes.

b) Homogeneous catalysis with Pd and Pt catalysts.

c) Study of intermediates in carbonylation reactions of unsaturated molecules

    and in the olefin/CO copolymerization.

d) Synthesis of new stereoregular polymeric materials.

 Initially she dealt with carbon-carbon coupling reactions catalyzed by means of Pd(0) phosphine complexes. Within this field of activity, she developed a novel synthesis of 2-arylalkanoic acids, studied the regio- and stereoselectivity of allylation reactions and, using platinum complexes, achieved a catalytic synthesis of cyclopropanes starting from allyl acetates and silyl ketene acetals. Successively she has concerned herself with the chemistry of simple organic molecules coordinated with transition metals such as Mo, Re and Nb. Over the last ten years she has interested herself in the insertion reaction of unsatured substrates such as olefins, alkynes and carbon monoxide in cationic complexes of palladium with the aim of developing regio- and stereoselective processes for the synthesis of complex molecules, starting from simple molecules and at low cost. The analysis of the reaction mechanisms, carried out through the isolation of the intermediates, has become of fundamental importance for the design of selective catalytic systems that operate in mild conditions. In this context dedication was initially given to the isolation and characterization of the intermediates deriving from the ordered insertion of styrene and carbon monoxide in palladium complexes containing alpha-diimine or bioxazoline ligands. The results of these studies have provided important indications about stereochemical control mechanisms dictated by the metal center and have allowed throwing light on the mechanisms of chain growing in alpha-olefins/CO copolymerizations, both syndiotactic and isotactic, resulting in considerable interest to scientists of the sector. Similar studies performed with non-cyclic 1,2-subtituted olefins have allowed highlighting a number of important aspects concerning the regio- and the stereochemistry of the insertion process. On the basis of the information acquired, highly selective alkoxycarbonylation reactions of olefins to produce chiral gamma-ketoesters and variously substituted succinates have been created. In addition, through cyclocarbonylation reactions of alkynes promoted by palladium complexes, containing bioxazoline chiral ligands, butenolides with good enantiomeric excess were obtained. Research was conducted in parallel relative to the synthesis of polymeric materials obtaining highly isotactic olefin/CO copolymers in good yield. Recently a particular type of styrene/CO copolymer was synthesized with a stereoblock isotactic microstructure, using achiral aryl alpha-diiminie ligands having bulky substituents in the orto-positions of the aryls. This type of ligands is able to generate a steric barrier inducing the enantioselective insertion of the olefin.