Maurizio Prato | |
---|---|
Born | Maurizio Prato October 11, 1953 |
Nationality | Italian |
Citizenship | Italy |
Alma mater | University of Padua |
Known for | Chemistry of nanocarbons Prato reaction |
Spouse | Elisabetta Schiavon (m. 1999) |
Children | Two (Carlo, Emma) |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Chemistry |
Institutions | University of Trieste BiomaGUNE, San Sebastián |
Website | maurizioprato www |
Maurizio Prato (born in Lecce October 11, 1953), is an Italian Organic Chemist, who is best known for his work on the functionalization of carbon nanostructures, including fullerenes, carbon nanotubes and graphene. He developed a series of organic reactions that make these materials more biocompatible, less or even non toxic, amenable to further functionalization, and easier to manipulate. He is Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Trieste and Research Professor at CIC BiomaGUNE in San Sebastián, Spain.
Prato received his degree from the University of Padua, Italy. He became assistant professor at the same University and then moved to the University of Trieste, Italy, as associate professor in 1992. He became full professor in Organic Chemistry in 2000. He has been visiting scientist at Yale (Prof. Danishefsky, 1986–87) and in California at Santa Barbara (Prof. Wudl, 1991–92). He has been visiting Professor at the Ecole Normale Superieure de Paris (2001) and at the University of Namur, Belgium (2010). From 2015 prof. Prato is also Ikerbasque professor and AXA Foundation Nanobiotechnology Chair at CIC Biomagune of San Sebastian-Donostia, Spain.
Maurizio Prato is an organic chemist, equally fluent in materials science and nanomedicine. From the beginning of his career, Maurizio Prato used his physical organic and synthetic chemistry backgrounds to expand the horizons of the chemical reactivity of fullerenes.
In 1993, together with M. Maggini and G. Scorrano, he published the first paper on the azomethine ylide cycloaddition to C60, which resulted to be a very useful reaction of functionalization of fullerenes. [1]
In 2002, he extended the same reaction to carbon nanotubes. [2] The reaction is very versatile, consisting in the condensation of an alpha-amino acid and an aldehyde to generate a reactive 1,3-dipole that then adds to a double bond of C60 or CNT, giving a pyrrolidine ring fused to the carbon skeleton. Many alpha-amino acids and aldehydes can be used very efficiently, for a total control of the functionalization process. [3] This addition, later called Prato reaction, was adapted from a very old reaction scheme, originally reported by Huisgen and then developed by many others. [4] Prato and his colleagues were the first to apply it to fullerenes.
Because of its versatility and applicability, this approach paved the way to the use of fullerenes and carbon nanotubes in important applications in fields as different as photovoltaics and drug delivery. In particular, Maurizio Prato, in a longstanding collaboration, initially with Alberto Bianco and later with Kostas Kostarelos, demonstrated the utility of carbon nanotubes to serve as efficient scaffolds for the delivery of vaccines and drugs. Carbon nanotubes are very well suited to act as drug carriers, because of their extraordinary capability to cross cell membranes. [5] This result has thrown open a very active area of research, which explores the applications of CNT in biology and medicine. [6]
In another interesting technological development of functionalized carbon nanotubes, Prato, in collaboration with neurophysiologist Laura Ballerini at the University of Trieste, has used carbon nanotubes as substrates for neuronal growth. [7] Carbon nanotubes integrate in an incredible way with nerve cells, leading to a boost in the spontaneous activity of the neurons. These researchers also found that two isolated slices of spinal cord can restart communicating through a bridge of carbon nanotubes. [8] The implications of this work is that in a (hopefully) not too distant future, carbon nanotubes might be used to repair or replace the function of damaged, altered and severed neurons and neuronal tissue.
Another topic recently developed by prof. Prato focuses on the synthesis and the study of carbon nanodots, quasi-spherical, water-soluble and fluorescent nanoparticles with a diameter < 10 nm. [9] These nanoparticles with a carbonaceous core are very rich in primary aliphatic amine groups on their surface that can be exploited not only for coupling reactions with molecules and/or other nanomaterials but also for catalysis and, interestingly, emission can be tailored through a rational choice of organic precursors. [10]
A fullerene is an allotrope of carbon whose molecule consists of carbon atoms connected by single and double bonds so as to form a closed or partially closed mesh, with fused rings of five to seven atoms. The molecule may be a hollow sphere, ellipsoid, tube, or many other shapes and sizes. Graphene, which is a flat mesh of regular hexagonal rings, can be seen as an extreme member of the family.
This is an electrostatic bond. This may increase the stability of the entity.
The 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition is a chemical reaction between a 1,3-dipole and a dipolarophile to form a five-membered ring. The earliest 1,3-dipolar cycloadditions were described in the late 19th century to the early 20th century, following the discovery of 1,3-dipoles. Mechanistic investigation and synthetic application were established in the 1960s, primarily through the work of Rolf Huisgen. Hence, the reaction is sometimes referred to as the Huisgen cycloaddition. 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition is an important route to the regio- and stereoselective synthesis of five-membered heterocycles and their ring-opened acyclic derivatives. The dipolarophile is typically an alkene or alkyne, but can be other pi systems. When the dipolarophile is an alkyne, aromatic rings are generally produced.
The Wittig reaction or Wittig olefination is a chemical reaction of an aldehyde or ketone with a triphenyl phosphonium ylide called a Wittig reagent. Wittig reactions are most commonly used to convert aldehydes and ketones to alkenes. Most often, the Wittig reaction is used to introduce a methylene group using methylenetriphenylphosphorane (Ph3P=CH2). Using this reagent, even a sterically hindered ketone such as camphor can be converted to its methylene derivative.
The Johnson–Corey–Chaykovsky reaction is a chemical reaction used in organic chemistry for the synthesis of epoxides, aziridines, and cyclopropanes. It was discovered in 1961 by A. William Johnson and developed significantly by E. J. Corey and Michael Chaykovsky. The reaction involves addition of a sulfur ylide to a ketone, aldehyde, imine, or enone to produce the corresponding 3-membered ring. The reaction is diastereoselective favoring trans substitution in the product regardless of the initial stereochemistry. The synthesis of epoxides via this method serves as an important retrosynthetic alternative to the traditional epoxidation reactions of olefins.
Azomethine ylides are nitrogen-based 1,3-dipoles, consisting of an iminium ion next to a carbanion. They are used in 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition reactions to form five-membered heterocycles, including pyrrolidines and pyrrolines. These reactions are highly stereo- and regioselective, and have the potential to form four new contiguous stereocenters. Azomethine ylides thus have high utility in total synthesis, and formation of chiral ligands and pharmaceuticals. Azomethine ylides can be generated from many sources, including aziridines, imines, and iminiums. They are often generated in situ, and immediately reacted with dipolarophiles.
The Prato reaction is a particular example of the well-known 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition of azomethine ylides to olefins. In fullerene chemistry this reaction refers to the functionalization of fullerenes and nanotubes. The amino acid sarcosine reacts with paraformaldehyde when heated at reflux in toluene to an ylide which reacts with a double bond in a 6,6 ring position in a fullerene via a 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition to yield a N-methylpyrrolidine derivative or pyrrolidinofullerene or pyrrolidino[[3,4:1,2]] [60]fullerene in 82% yield based on C60 conversion.
Donna J. Nelson is an American chemist and professor of chemistry at the University of Oklahoma. Nelson specializes in organic chemistry, which she both researches and teaches. Nelson served as a science advisor to the AMC television show Breaking Bad. She was the 2016 President of the American Chemical Society (ACS) with her presidential activities focusing on and guided by communities in chemistry. Nelson's research focused on five primary topics, generally categorized in two areas, Scientific Research and America's Scientific Readiness. Within Scientific Research, Nelson's topics have been on mechanistic patterns in alkene addition reactions and on Single-Walled Carbon Nanotube (SWCNT) functionalization and analysis, yielding the first COSY NMR spectrum of covalently functionalized SWCNTs in solution. Under America's Scientific Readiness, she focuses on science education and impacting science by considering its communities; this includes classroom innovations and correcting organic chemistry textbook inaccuracies, on ethnic and gender diversity among highly ranked science departments of research universities, and on improving the image and presentation of science and scientists to the public.
Fullerene chemistry is a field of organic chemistry devoted to the chemical properties of fullerenes. Research in this field is driven by the need to functionalize fullerenes and tune their properties. For example, fullerene is notoriously insoluble and adding a suitable group can enhance solubility. By adding a polymerizable group, a fullerene polymer can be obtained. Functionalized fullerenes are divided into two classes: exohedral fullerenes with substituents outside the cage and endohedral fullerenes with trapped molecules inside the cage.
A geodesic polyarene in organic chemistry is a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon with curved convex or concave surfaces. Examples include fullerenes, nanotubes, corannulenes, helicenes and sumanene. The molecular orbitals of the carbon atoms in these systems are to some extent pyramidalized resulting a different pi electron density on either side of the molecule with consequences for reactivity.
In nanotechnology, a carbon nanobud is a material that combines carbon nanotubes and spheroidal fullerenes, both allotropes of carbon, forming "buds" attached to the tubes. Carbon nanobuds were discovered and synthesized in 2006.
Selective chemistry of single-walled nanotubes is a field in Carbon nanotube chemistry devoted specifically to the study of functionalization of single-walled carbon nanotubes.
Carbon nanotube chemistry involves chemical reactions, which are used to modify the properties of carbon nanotubes (CNTs). CNTs can be functionalized to attain desired properties that can be used in a wide variety of applications. The two main methods of CNT functionalization are covalent and non-covalent modifications.
Horst Prinzbach was a German chemist and professor emeritus.
Carbon quantum dots also commonly called carbon dots are carbon nanoparticles which are less than 10 nm in size and have some form of surface passivation.
María Antonia Herrero is a chemist who works in the faculty of chemical sciences at the University of Castilla–La Mancha (UCLM) in Ciudad Real. Her work focuses on chemical nanomaterials, with research undertaken at the same university.
A cycloparaphenylene is a molecule that consists of several benzene rings connected by covalent bonds in the para positions to form a hoop- or necklace-like structure. Its chemical formula is [C6H4]n or C
6nH
4n Such a molecule is usually denoted [n]CPP where n is the number of benzene rings.
Andrew R. Barron is a British chemist, academic, and entrepreneur. He is the Sêr Cymru Chair of Low Carbon Energy and Environment at Swansea University, and the Charles W. Duncan Jr.-Welch Foundation Chair in Chemistry at Rice University. He is the founder and director of Energy Safety Research Institute (ESRI) at Swansea University, which consolidates the energy research at the University with a focus on environmental impact and future security. At Rice University, he leads a Research Group and has served as Associate Dean for Industry Interactions and Technology Transfer.
Silvia Giordani is an Italian chemist who is Professor of Nanomaterials at Dublin City University. Her research considers carbon-based functional materials for biotechnology. She was awarded a L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science fellowship in 2012.
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