Our group’s journey into catalytic studies began years ago. In the first period our main activity was measuring the pKa values of Brønsted acids catalysts and relating them with catalytic activity. However, it was always problematic that the catalytic activity was quantified by different authors in very different ways: different reactions, different substrates of the same reaction, different ways to express activity (rate constant, yield), different solvents, different concentrations, different temperatures… All this diversity makes comparing catalytic activity difficult to impossible.

So, we set forth to find a model reaction, define conditions and a unified quantitative parameter for expressing acatlytic activity of various Brønsted acid catalysts.

This endeavour has now reached its first result: PhD student gleb Maksimov from our group discovered that the transfer hydrogenation reaction with substituted quinoline has the suitable characteristics for this work and utilizing the Kimball-Collins theory modelling approach applied to rate constante (measured by NMR), a catalytic activity parameter was defined that enables unified and comparable quantification of the catalytic activity of Brønsted acids! The proof of principle is now published: Molecular Catalysis 2025, 573, 114846. Towards quantifying catalytic activity of homogeneous Brønsted acid catalysts.

Congratulatuons, Gleb!

However, this work is far from complete. Gleb together with new students will continue to improving te methodolog and widening the applicability of the approach so that many more results and with higher quantitative accuracy would be possible in the future. We are excited about the potential advancements and look forward to sharing more updates as the research progresses.