From n-alkane to conjugated polyene and their aromatization via on-surface chemistry

Institute of Functional Nano & Soft Materials

Soochow University

Lifeng Chi obtained her PhD in Max-Planck-Institute for Biophysical Chemistry (University of Goettingen) in 1989 and then went to University of Mainz and BASF working as a Postdoc. She became a Group Leader in Physics Institute of Muenster University from 1993 and granted a Lisa Meitner stipendium in 1997. She received National Outstanding Youth Science Foundation (Type B) of China in 1999 and became a professor in physics of Muenster University in 2004. In 2012, She was appointed as a chair professor in Soochow University. She was selected as a Foreign Academician of Academia Europaea, an Academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the World Academy of Sciences for the Advancement of science in developing countries (TWAS) respectively in 2020, 2021 and 2023.

She obtained the 2016 ACS Nano Lectureship Award and received Distinguished Women in Chemistry/Chemical Engineering Award of IUPAC in 2017. Currently, she is serving as the Associate Editor of ACS Nano and Chemical Research in Chinese Universities. Up to now, she has presided over 20 national-level research grants and published nearly 500 papers.

On-surface chemistry is an emerging interdisciplinary discipline developed in recent years, which presents the great potential in breaking through limitations of traditional chemical synthesis and accurately preparing functional molecular nanostructures. After a series of explorations to address the challenging scientific problem of selective C-H bond activation and C-C coupling of saturated alkanes on Au(110) surface [1,2], we further realized the conversion of normal alkanes to conjugated polyenes on the surface of Cu(110) and interpreted the underline mechanisms[3-6]. More recently, we demonstrated the high selective dehydrogenative aromatization of n-alkane on different metal surfaces. Thereby new methods for the on-surface conversion from n-alkane to conjugated polyene and their aromatization are established.

[1] D. Y. Zhong et al., Science. 2011, 334, 213 .

[2] K.W. Sun et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2018, 140. 4820 .

[3] X.C. Li et al., Nat. Sci. Rev. 2021, 8, nwab093.

[4] Z.M. Hao et al., J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 2022, 13, 3276.

[5] Y.N.Tang et. al., Angew. Chem. Int. Ed, 2022, 61, e202204123.

[6] L.N. Wang et al., Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2024, on-line