Abstract: Among all the metal-catalyzed coupling reactions, carbonylation reactions have experienced impressive improvements. In fact, today the largest applications of homogeneous catalysis (regarding scale) are carbonylation reactions, especially hydroformylations. The advantages of carbonylations are i) it is the most potent methodology in the synthesis of carbonyl-containing chemicals, which increases the carbon number at the same time, and (ii) carbon monoxide (CO) can be used as an inexpensive and readily available C1 source, which is also in agreement with the green chemistry principles. Hence, it is not surprising that there are many carbonylation reactions being employed on an industrial scale. Despite all these achievements and a century of carbonylation catalysis, many important research questions and challenges remain. In this presentation, we will discuss our work on various carbonylations of unsaturated compounds and related reactions and what about the future of carbonylation reactions?

Dr. Xiao-Feng Wuwas born in 1985 in China. He studied chemistry in Zhejiang Sci-Tech University (ZSTU), where he obtained his BSc degree in science in 2007. In the same year, he moved to Rennes 1 University in France and worked with Prof C. Darcel on iron-catalyzed reactions. After earning his Master’s degree in 2009, he joined Matthias Beller’s group in the Leibniz Institute for Catalysis (LIKAT) in Germany, where he completed his PhD thesis in January 2012. He subsequently began independent research at ZSTU and LIKAT. He was also a Fellow of the Max-Buchner-Forschungsstiftung. He has published more than 200 highly-impact SCI papers, 10 books and 2 patents. It is worth to mention that he published more than 25 highly-impact paper as the first author during his PhD degree.

Honors and Awards

Ø  The Chinese government award for outstanding self-financed students abroad (2011)

Ø  Max-Buchner scholarship, Germany (2011-2012)

Ø  Qianjiang Scholar of Zhejiang Province, China (2013)

Ø  First class of 151 talent grogram of Zhejiang Province, China (2014)

Ø  Wiley Excellent Author Award (2015)

Ø  Zhejiang Natural Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars (2016)

Ø  Young Scientist Prize of the 16th International Congress on Catalysis (ICC 16, 2016)

Ø  Thieme Chemistry Journal Award (2017)

Representative Papers: Angew. Chem. 2017, 10.1002/anie.201709807; Acc. Chem. Res. 2014, 47, 1041; Chem. Rev. 2013, 113, 1; Chem. Soc. Rev. 2011, 40, 4986.