Dr. Rony Rajan Paul

My research mainly focuses on the development of new methodologies in organic synthesis. The strategies which we mainly deal with includes multicomponent reactions, organocatalytic reactions as well as reactions involving single electron oxidants.

Multicomponent reactions are reactions in which more than two reactants combine in a sequential manner to give highly selective products that retain almost all the atoms of the starting materials. The atom economy and environmental benignity of the reactions makes it a versatile tool for the synthesis of compounds with more complexity. We will explore substrates that are hitherto unknown for this purpose and the synthetic strategy will be determined by theoretical studies which will be done by collaboration with a group in our department.
Organocatalysis has become a major field in organic chemistry addressing catalytic chemical transformations with nonmetallic molecules as precatalyst systems. Placed between the extremes of transition metal catalysis and enzymatic transformations, organocatalysis offers several advantages. In this area we will be mainly investigating on N-heterocyclic carbenes as organocatalysts.

The explorations on the chemistry of single electron oxidants involving the use of involve use of salts of high valent metals such as Mn(III), Ce(IV), Cu(II), Ag(I), Co(III), V(V), Fe(III), etc. will be a long standing goal in our research.