State of Delaware CAT Grant Awarded for the Development of Silyl-Heck Reactions in Supercritical Carbon Dioxide

Assistant Professor Donald Watson at the University of Delaware, in partnership with Supercritical Fluid Technologies, Inc. (SFT), was recently awarded a Center for Advanced Technology (CAT) Grant from the State of Delaware’s Biotechnology Institute and the Delaware Economic Development Office. This grant funding will help fuel the ongoing revitalization of the state’s economy by spurring job growth in the pharmaceutical and agricultural industries. The grant will be for “The Development of Silyl-Heck Reactions in Supercritical CO₂”. SFT’s Director of Technology, Dr. Kenneth James, said: “The Silyl-Heck reaction is a novel reaction developed recently in the Watson Lab to prepare organosilanes using traditional organic solvents.  These compounds are important reagents in preparing biologically active and medicinal compounds in the pharmaceutical industry. We expect the supercritical reaction conditions to vastly improve the production, purity, and yield of allyl silanes. Providing new synthetic methods using green processing technology for preparing biologically active compounds will be foundational work that is necessary to create and move green processing technology into the industrial chemical processing main stream.”