Author Spotlight of CCS Chemistry—— 暨南大学李丹教授

中国化学会

人物介绍

Dan Li (李丹)

Prof. Dan Li received his B.Sc. from Sun Yat-Sen University in 1984 and then worked at Shantou University. He pursued his Ph.D. at the University of Hong Kong with Prof. Chi-Ming Che from 1988–1993. Then he returned to Shantou University and became a professor in 2001. He moved to Jinan University in Guangzhou in 2016. He was a recipient of the award of the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars of China in 2008 and Fellow of The Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) in 2014. He has been working in the field of supramolecular coordination chemistry and focuses his research on the design and fabrication of supramolecular coordination assemblies and their functions including photoluminescence, porosity, chirality, and energy storage.

Q1: Who helped you the most as you pursued your research career?

Prof. Li: For sure, Prof. Chi-Ming Che, who was my Ph.D. supervisor at the University of Hong Kong. He led me into the research of the synthesis, photophysics, and photochemistry of coordination compounds.

Q2: What are some difficult challenges you have faced during your research career? How did you overcome them?

Prof. Li: The most difficult challenge was the deficiencies of research facilities in my early career. I was lucky that I was supported by the president of Shantou University, Prof. Xiaohu Xu, to acquire an X-ray single crystal diffractometer.

Q3: Who is(are) scientist(s) you most respect or admire? Why?

Prof. Li: My most respected scientist is Alfred Werner. He built a cornerstone of stereochemistry since the time of his doctoral studies. He initiated and recognized the fundamental principle of complex chemistry and formulated the conceptual bases of coordination compounds. His revolutionary approach opened up new avenues of research, made inorganic chemistry more thriving and prosperous, and has been applied in all chemistry subjects and industrial sectors. Today, his work still constitutes the theoretical basis for molecular and supramolecular chemistry.

Q4: What do you see as the biggest obstacles and most promising applications in your research area?

Prof. Li: My research focus is on the design and synthesis of new supramolecular coordination compounds. The biggest obstacle is how to find the applications for these new molecules and use them to make new materials. I am happy to see that these kinds of molecules and their aggregates have found many promising applications such as gas separation, energy storage, catalysis, sensing, and luminescence materials.

Q5: What advice do you have for younger students and researchers beginning their careers in chemistry, and in particular those interested in your field?

Prof. Li: Try the best to find your research interest and then become unique. It is challenging and difficult, but you need to persist.

Q6: Thank you for publishing your superb work in CCS Chemistry! Could you provide a brief summary of your article and current research direction in a few sentences?

Prof. Li: We have been working for 15 years on the supramolecular coordination chemistry of coinage-metal-based cyclic trinuclear complexes (CTCs). CTCs have also been extended to coordination oligomers and coordination polymers based on secondary building units (SBUs) of cyclic trinuclear units (CTUs). Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) and covalent organic frameworks (COFs) are emerging classes of crystalline polymeric materials constructed by strong coordinate and covalent bonds, respectively. In this piece of work, we reported a new strategy to network copper(I) CTUs into two distinct 2D covalent metal–organic frameworks (CMOFs) by dynamic covalent bonds, combining the chemistry of MOFs and COFs. Having inherent advantages of good crystallinity and stability as well as high porosity from both MOFs and COFs, the reported materials demonstrate excellent catalytic activities from inborn metal open sites for palladium-free Sonogashira coupling reactions with high efficiency and tolerance (>90% yield for nine examples).

Learn more： Rong-Jia Wei^†, Hou-Gan Zhou^†, Zhi-Yin Zhang, Guo-Hong Ning^* (宁国宏), and Dan Li^* (李丹). Copper (I)–Organic Frameworks for Catalysis: Networking Metal Clusters with Dynamic Covalent Chemistry. CCS Chem. 2020, 2, 2045–2053.

Link: https://doi.org/10.31635/ccschem.020.202000401

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