Event

New Methods and Technologies for Organic Electrochemistry

Owing to its many distinct characteristics, electrochemistry represents an attractive approach to discovering new organic reactions and improving the efficiency, selectivity, and sustainability of organic synthesis. Leveraging the unique capabilities of electrochemistry, my laboratory has developed a range of synthetic transformations that are previously challenging to access, achieving so with high selectivity and energy efficiency. This talk details our design principle underpinning the development of these new electrochemical transformations. In addition, this talk will discuss a parallel effort in the development of new electrochemical high-throughput reactors that can drastically improve the efficiency of reaction discovery and optimization. In particular, we invented light-harvesting microelectronic devices that can convert visible light into an electric current, thus driving electrochemistry reactions in a wireless fashion. These devices greatly simplify electrosynthetic experiments and accelerate the discovery of new catalysts and reactions for applications in sustainable organic synthesis. 

Biography 

Song Lin grew up in Tianjin, China. After obtaining B.S. from Peking University in 2008, Song embarked on his graduate studies at Harvard University working with Eric Jacobsen. He then carried out postdoctoral studies with Chris Chang at UC Berkeley. In 2016, Song started his independent career at Cornell University, where he is currently a Tisch University Professor. Song has received several early career awards, including the Sloan Fellowship, ACS Cope Scholar, National Fresenius Award, Cottrell Scholar Award, Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, NSF CAREER Award, MIT Technology Review Innovators Under 35, BMS Unrestricted Grant in Synthetic Organic Chemistry, and EPA Green Chemistry Challenge. He is currently an Associate Editor at Organic Letters and serves on the Advisory Board of Chem, Synlett, and Tetrahedron, and the Scientific Advisory Board of OWiC Technologies. The Lin Laboratory’s research lies at the interface between electrochemistry and organic chemistry. The main objective is to use fundamental principles of electrochemistry and radical chemistry to discover new organic transformations and uncover new reaction mechanisms.