NextBase is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Doctoral Network (DN) composed by four Academic and two non-Academic groups (beneficiaries)

Catalysis is today exploited for preparing ca. 90% of chemical and pharmaceutical products. Use of catalysts allows for efficient chemical transformations, limiting the energy consumption and improving selectivity and atom economy. However, a large number of catalytic systems rely on noble metals (e.g., Pd, Pt, Rh, Ir, Au), with associated sustainability issues. Indeed, all these metals are undergoing strong price fluctuations and will face supply limitations in the future. Moreover, given the toxicity of most precious metals, the tolerated threshold in fine chemicals and APIs is very low, with associated purification costs (solvents, energy, generation of waste). For these reasons, replacement of noble metals with the cheaper “base metals” – in particular, 1st row transition metals such as Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu – is becoming a compelling goal for chemists, as well as a need for society. However, this goal also represents a tremendous challenge, as the typical reactivity of 2nd and 3rd row TMs cannot be easily transferred to 1st row TMs, due to their different electronic structure: the so-called “base metals” tend to form high spin complexes and to engage in single electron transfer rather than in the multielectron redox steps typical of noble metals.