Chao-Jun "C.-J." Li is E. B. Eddy Professor of Chemistry and Canada Research Chair in Green Chemistry at

McGill University McGill University (french: link=no, Université McGill) is an English-language public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter granted by King George IV,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill Universit ...

Montréal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple-p ...

. He works on organic transformation applied to Green chemistry, including C-H activation, reactions in water and

photochemistry Photochemistry is the branch of chemistry concerned with the chemical effects of light. Generally, this term is used to describe a chemical reaction caused by absorption of ultraviolet (wavelength from 100 to 400 nm), visible light (400–7 ...

Education

C.-J. Li was born in 1963, and obtained his BSc from

Zhengzhou University Zhengzhou University (), colloquially known in Chinese as Zhèngdà () and abbreviated as ZZU is a public university located in Zhengzhou, Henan, China. Zhengzhou University is the largest university in China in terms of number of students (aroun ...

(1979–1983), and completed his MSc. in organic synthesis at the

Chinese Academy of Sciences The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS); ), known by Academia Sinica in English until the 1980s, is the national academy of the People's Republic of China for natural sciences. It has historical origins in the Academia Sinica during the Republ ...

(1985–1988) with Prof. T.H. Chan. He then moved to McGill University (Montréal, Québec) to do his PhD (1989–1992) with Prof. T.H. Chan again (and discovered the indium-mediated allylation reaction in water), along with Prof.

David Harpp David Noble Harpp is a Canadian chemist, science communicator and award-winning university teacher. He holds the Tomlinson Chair in Science Education at McGill University. Harpp published more than 230 chemistry articles in peer-reviewed public ...

(working on organosulfur/selenium/tellurium chemistry), and went on a

NSERC The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC; french: Conseil de recherches en sciences naturelles et en génie du Canada, CRSNG) is the major federal agency responsible for funding natural sciences and engineering rese ...

-funded postdoc with Prof.

Barry Trost Barry M. Trost (born June 13, 1941, in Philadelphia) is an American chemist who is the Job and Gertrud Tamaki Professor Emeritus in the School of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford University. The Tsuji-Trost reaction and the Trost ligand are ...

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

in the United States (1992–1994) (and discovered the so-called phosphine-catalyzed γ-addition reaction).

Career and research

C.-J. Li started as an assistant professor at

Tulane University Tulane University, officially the Tulane University of Louisiana, is a private university, private research university in New Orleans, Louisiana. Founded as the Medical College of Louisiana in 1834 by seven young medical doctors, it turned into ...

in 1994, and attained the title of Professor of Chemistry in 2000. He then moved in 2003 to McGill University, where he obtained a

Canada Research Chair Canada Research Chair (CRC) is a title given to certain Canadian university research professors by the Canada Research Chairs Program. Program goals The Canada Research Chair program was established in 2000 as a part of the Government of Canada ...

(Tier I) in

Green Chemistry Green chemistry, also called sustainable chemistry, is an area of chemistry and chemical engineering focused on the design of products and processes that minimize or eliminate the use and generation of hazardous substances. While environmental che ...

. He has also been the director of

CREATE for Green Chemistry (2012–2018), the director of CFI Infrastructure for Green Chemistry and Green Chemicals (2008–2018) and has been the co-director of the FQRNT Center for Green Chemistry and Catalysis since 2009. C.-J. Li's research encompasses various aspects of green chemistry applied to organic chemistry:

organometallic Organometallic chemistry is the study of organometallic compounds, chemical compounds containing at least one chemical bond between a carbon atom of an organic molecule and a metal, including alkali, alkaline earth, and transition metals, and so ...

catalysis Catalysis () is the process of increasing the rate of a chemical reaction by adding a substance known as a catalyst (). Catalysts are not consumed in the reaction and remain unchanged after it. If the reaction is rapid and the catalyst recyc ...

(thermal and light-based). Most notably, he is known for using water as a reaction media for various chemical reactions (

hydrogenation Hydrogenation is a chemical reaction between molecular hydrogen (H2) and another compound or element, usually in the presence of a Catalysis, catalyst such as nickel, palladium or platinum. The process is commonly employed to redox, reduce or S ...

, Grignard type-reactions in water). Li originated the concepts of Aldehyde-Alkyne-Amine Coupling (

A3 coupling reaction The A3 coupling (also known as A3 coupling reaction or the aldehyde-alkyne-amine reaction), coined by Prof. Chao-Jun Li of McGill University, is a type of multicomponent reaction involving an aldehyde, an alkyne and an amine which react to give a pr ...

) and the cross dehydrogenative coupling (CDC Reaction, or C-H/C-H coupling, or oxidative C-H cross coupling). His work on

GaN The word Gan or the initials GAN may refer to: Places *Gan, a component of Hebrew placenames literally meaning "garden" China * Gan River (Jiangxi) * Gan River (Inner Mongolia), * Gan County, in Jiangxi province * Gansu, abbreviated ''Gā ...

nanowires A nanowire is a nanostructure in the form of a wire with the diameter of the order of a nanometre (10−9 metres). More generally, nanowires can be defined as structures that have a thickness or diameter constrained to tens of nanometers or less ...

photocatalyst In chemistry, photocatalysis is the acceleration of a photoreaction in the presence of a catalyst. In catalyzed photolysis, light is absorbed by an adsorbed substrate. In photogenerated catalysis, the photocatalytic activity depends on the abili ...

s for the conversion of

methane Methane ( , ) is a chemical compound with the chemical formula (one carbon atom bonded to four hydrogen atoms). It is a group-14 hydride, the simplest alkane, and the main constituent of natural gas. The relative abundance of methane on Eart ...

into

benzene Benzene is an organic chemical compound with the molecular formula C6H6. The benzene molecule is composed of six carbon atoms joined in a planar ring with one hydrogen atom attached to each. Because it contains only carbon and hydrogen atoms, ...

was covered by

Phys.org Phys.org is an online science, research and technology news aggregator offering briefs from press releases and reports from news agencies (a form of journalism sometimes pejoratively called churnalism). The website also produces its own science jo ...

in 2015, leaving prospects for

hydrogen storage Hydrogen storage can be accomplished by several existing methods of holding hydrogen for later use. These include mechanical approaches such as using high pressures and low temperatures, or employing chemical compounds that release H2 upon demand ...

. Subsequently, his team showed that they were also able to convert

methanol Methanol (also called methyl alcohol and wood spirit, amongst other names) is an organic chemical and the simplest aliphatic alcohol, with the formula C H3 O H (a methyl group linked to a hydroxyl group, often abbreviated as MeOH). It is a ...

into

ethanol Ethanol (abbr. EtOH; also called ethyl alcohol, grain alcohol, drinking alcohol, or simply alcohol) is an organic compound. It is an Alcohol (chemistry), alcohol with the chemical formula . Its formula can be also written as or (an ethyl ...

. He also made breakthroughs in using

hydrazone Hydrazones are a class of organic compounds with the structure . They are related to ketones and aldehydes by the replacement of the oxygen =O with the = functional group. They are formed usually by the action of hydrazine on ketones or aldehydes. ...

s as organometallic surrogates in nucleophilic addition and cross-coupling, the direct amination of phenol derivatives. and the fluorescence enhancement due to self-assembling in solution.

Selected publications

Reactions in water: * The Barbier–Grignard-type arylation of aldehydes using unactivated aryl iodides in water * Silver‐Catalyzed Hydrogenation of Aldehydes in Water

Cross dehydrogenative coupling GaN photocatalysts * Photoinduced Conversion of Methane into Benzene over GaN Nanowires * Direct Catalytic Methanol-to-Ethanol Photoconversion via Methyl Carbene

Hydrazones Hydrazones are a class of organic compounds with the structure . They are related to ketones and aldehydes by the replacement of the oxygen =O with the = functional group. They are formed usually by the action of hydrazine on ketones or aldehydes. ...

as organometallic reagents surrogates: * Carbonyls as alkyl carbanion equivalents for 1,2-nucleophilic additions, conjugate additions, and cross-couplings

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Li, Chao-Jun Stanford University alumni Canadian people of Chinese descent Academic staff of McGill University Organic chemists Zhengzhou University alumni 1963 births Living people