Professor Paul Knochel, Ludwig Maximilians University, Munich, Germany, has won the EROS Best Reagent Award 2011 for the development of lithium dichloro(1-methylethyl)-magnesate. The award was created by Aldrich® Chemistry and John Wiley & Sons to honor the work of the authors of the online edition of Encyclopedia of Reagents for Organic Synthesis (e-EROS). Every year, 200–300 synthetic chemists contribute articles to e-EROS to keep the collection up-to-date and a key source of information for chemists at the bench. The Editorial Board select their favorite reagents from among these articles and the resulting shortlist is then voted on by the Award Committee. Professor Knochel receives $10,000 for winning and will present a plenary lecture at Purdue University, Indiana, USA, in March 2012.
The 2011 Reagent: Lithium Dichloro(1-methylethyl)-Magnesate (Aldrich Catalog: 656984; CAS: 807329-97-1)
Discovered in 2004, the reagent is also known as Isopropylmagnesium Chloride–Lithium Chloride complex or Turbo-Grignard™. It has found a wide range of elegant applications in laboratory syntheses and has been up-scaled for industrial processes. The article on the Award winning reagent by Paul Knochel and Andrei Gavryushin was published in EROS in October 2010.
Professor Paul Knochel studied at the University of Strasbourg, France, and did his Ph.D. at the ETH Zürich, Switzerland, with Professor D. Seebach. He spent four years at University Pierre and Marie Curie, Paris, France, and one year of post-doctoral studies at Princeton University, USA. In 1987, he accepted a position as Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, USA, and in 1991, he became Full Professor at this university. He moved to Philipps University, Marburg, Germany, as C4-Professor in Organic Chemistry, before taking up his current position at Ludwig Maximilians University, in 1999.
His research interests include the development of novel organometallic reagents and methods for use in organic synthesis, asymmetric catalysis and natural product synthesis.
- Lithium Dichloro(1-methylethyl)-magnesate
P. Knochel, A. Gavryushin,
In Encyclopedia of Reagents for Organic Synthesis, John Wiley & Sons, New York, USA, 2010.
DOI: 10.1002/047084289X.rn01161
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