URI chemist invents new process

KINGSTON – University of Rhode Island organic chemist Brenton DeBoef has been awarded a $550,000 National Science Foundation grant to further develop his new process for linking molecules, the university said today.
“We’re inventors here,” said DeBoef, an East Providence resident and an assistant professor in the URI Department of Chemistry, in explaining his work to a university spokesperson. “We invent new chemical reactions.”
His just-patented process makes it possible to cleave strong carbon-hydrogen bonds and form new carbon-carbon bonds in a single step. It eliminates the need for an intermediate step using bromine- or boron-containing molecules, thereby helping save time, money and the environment.
“Dr. DeBoef is an outstanding teacher and scientist whose entrepreneurial research in green chemistry is applicable to a variety of products and processes,” Winifred Brownell, dean of the URI College of Arts and Sciences, said in a statement. “Undergraduate and graduate students eagerly flock to his laboratory and classes – and companies do, as well.
DeBoef describes his work as fundamental science that could be useful to many industries: pharmaceutical companies, which already have come knocking, and herbicide or dye makers, among others.
It is attractive to such companies because it could save time, and therefore money, in the many-step process of creating a specific molecule, URI said. And by eliminating the need for molecules containing boron, bromine or other hazardous chemicals, which are later discarded as waste, it could reduce also both the cost of materials and the impact on the environment.
But DeBoef – whose research group focuses on organic chemistry and organometallic catalysis, working out of the Chemistry Department’s Pastore Hall, on the main Kingston campus – says the process still needs to be developed and expanded before it reaches the global marketplace. His five-year grant from the NSF will enable him to do just that.
It also will help him with another project: developing a green chemistry curriculum at URI to train synthetic chemists for the global marketplace. Included in the grant is support for five graduate students and three to four undergraduates.
DeBoef also is working to develop an international chemistry program, in cooperation with the Technische Universität Braunschweig (Brunswick Technical University) in Germany.
“We are all delighted to see his groundbreaking research recognized with this prestigious award from NSF,” said Brownell, “and are confident that Professor DeBoef will continue his phenomenal achievements in green chemistry that will improve both production and the quality of life in Rhode Island and throughout the world.”
Additional news and information from the University of Rhode Island are available at www.uri.edu/news. For more information about the work of Brenton DeBoef and his research group, go to chm.uri.edu.