One of our major interests is in green chemistry, trying to develop viable industrial processes that can provide chemicals without damaging the environment. Related to this, we want to design educational experiments for high schools that avoid waste and showcase green chemistry.

With support from the New York State DEC and the Pollution Prevention Institute we have designed a series of green chemistry experiments based on the principles of green chemistry.

We are exploring new syntheses of vinyl sulfoxides and sulfones. The published syntheses for these compounds mostly depend on hazardous reagents and intermediates, such as sulfur mustards. We have come up with safer procedures that use cheap feedstocks, with the aim of making these useful building blocks more available.

An older project aimed to develop a method for coupling aryl halides using organocopper intermediates. In practice, we found the procedure failed to cause coupling, but instead caused fairly clean dehalogenation.

All work has been done by our research group of undergraduate students. Their enthusiasm and commitment is much appreciated!

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