Laboratory of Inorganic Synthesis and Catalysis (LSCI)

Xile Hu was born in 1978 in a small village in Putian, southeastern China. He studied chemistry in the College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering at Peking University. As an undergraduate research assistant, he worked on the intercalation chemistry of tungsten bronze in the laboratory of Prof. Jianhua Lin. He obtained his B.S. degree in June 2000. Shortly after, he moved to the United States and began his doctoral studies under the guidance of Prof. Karsten Meyer at the University of California, San Diego (now at the FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg). His research focused on the development of tripodal N-heterocyclic carbene ligands for small molecule activation. In December 2004, after having defended his dissertation "Metal Complexes of Tripodal N-Heterocyclic Carbene Ligands: Synthesis, Structure, Bonding, and Reactivity", he was awarded a Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry. He became a postdoctoral scholar in the group of Prof. Jonas C. Peters at the California Institute of Technology in February 2005. At Caltech, he worked on the development of transition metal complexes for electrocatalytic hydrogen production, in collaboration with Prof. Nathan S. Lewis and Dr. Bruce S. Brunschwig. In 2007, he was appointed as a tenure-track assistant professor of chemistry in the Institute of Chemical Sciences and Engineering at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, where he directs the Laboratory of Inorganic Synthesis and Catalysis. His laboratory is seeking to develop catalysts made of earth-abundant elements for chemical transformations pertinent to synthesis, energy, and sustainability.

Latest NEWS

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Master students: if you are interested in carrying out your Master's thesis projects in organic and organometallic chemistry, catalysis, or energy, please contact Prof. Hu.

♦ [January] Our C-H functionalization chemistry "Ni/Cu-Catalyzed Direct Alkylation of Heterocyclic C-H Bonds" is accepted for publication in Angewandte Chemie International Edition. Coming soon.
♦ [January] Jan Breitenfeld joined the lab as a Ph.D. student. Jan obtained his diploma from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. He arrived on January 15th, 2010.

2009

♦ [December] Our bio-mimetic chemistry "Synthesis and reactivity of iron acyl complexes modeling the active site of [Fe]-hydrogenase" is published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. See details. It is highlighted in "Swiss Science Concentrates" in Chimia (March 2010).
♦ [November] The journal 'Synform' publishes a story to highlight our work on Ni-catalyzed alkyl-aryl coupling (JACS 2009, 131, 9756-9766) (Synform, 2009, 09).
♦ [November] Our work on Ni-catalyzed Sonogashira coupling of alkyl halides (JACS 2009, 131, 12078-12079) is selected by the journal 'Synfacts' as 'SYNFACT of the month' for December 2009 (Synfacts, 2009, 1383).

SELECTED PUBLICTIONS

1. Chen, D.F,; Scopelliti, R.; Hu, X.L.* Synthesis and Reactivity of Iron Acyl Complexes Modeling the Active Site of [Fe]-Hydrogenase. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2010, 132, 928-929.
2. Vechorkin, O.; Barmaz, D. Proust, V.; Hu, X.L.* Ni-Catalyzed Sonogashira Coupling of Non-activated Alkyl Halides: Orthogonal Functionalization of Alkyl Iodides, Bromides, and Chlorides. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2009, 131, 12078-12079.
3. Vechorkin, O.; Proust, V.; Hu, X.L.* Functional Group Tolerant Kumada-Corriu-Tamao Coupling of Non-Activated Alkyl Halides with Aryl and Heteroaryl Nucleophiles: Catalysis by a Nickel Pincer Complex Permits the Coupling of Functionalized Grignard Reagents. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2009, 131, 9756-9766.
4. Vechrokin, O.; Hu, X.L.* Ni-Catalyzed Cross Coupling of Non-Activated and Functionalized Alkyl Halides with Alkyl Grignard Reagents. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2009, 48, 2937-2940.
5. Csok, Z.; Vechorkin, O.; Harkins, S.B.; Scopelliti, R.; Hu, X.L.* Nickel Complexes of a Pincer NN₂Ligand: Multiple Carbon-Chloride Activation of CH₂Cl₂ and CHCl₃ Leads to Selective Carbon-Carbon Bond Formation. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2008, 130, 8156-8157.
6. Hu, X.L.; Brunschwig, B.S.; Peters, J.C.* Electrocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution at Low Overpotentials by Cobalt Macrocyclic Glyoxime and Tetraimine Complexes. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2007, 129, 8988-8998.

About Professor Xile HU

Latest NEWS

SELECTED PUBLICTIONS