Design of new aggregates for catalysis

Amphiphiles aggregate in aqueous environment, forming a lipophilic phase which can include organic substrates. Although these compounds are not soluble in aqueous environment, they can come together in the aggregate and react just like in common organic solvents.The focus of this thesis is to synthesize new surfactants for catalysis in aqueous environment.Chapter 1 summarized the principles of self-assembly of amphiphiles and the main developments in surfactant-enabled catalysis.Chapter 2 describes BINOL-based amphiphiles and the different structures obtained by changing their substitution. The observed vesicles and cubic structures rearranged to form thermodynamically stable nanotubes, facilitated by sonication.Chapter 3 focused on using transition metal ions to access different aggregates. From a single amphiphilic salen scaffold, cubic structures, sponges, vesicles and micelles were obtained. Spectroscopic investigation shed light on the role of water coordination responsible for the change in self-assembly.In Chapter 4, the formation of chiral ribbons from a chiral bis(urea) amphiphile was investigated. The coiling of such ribbons was tuned with the e.e. of the mixture. The system showed thermo-responsive properties, forming vesicles by heating.In Chapter 5 new BINOL-based amphiphiles were synthesized and their self-assembly was investigated. The salen-based amphiphiles presented in Chapter 3 were tested for catalysis.Chapters 6 focused on ultra-fast organolithium cross-coupling. Molecular oxygen activated the palladium complex to form active nanoparticles. The fast reaction was used in [11C] labelling of the PET-tracer Celecoxib. Chapter 7 described an application of the fast cross-coupling in the synthesis of the breast-cancer drug Tamoxifen