Name: Yi (Charlene) Liu
Hometown: Hunan, China
Email:

LinkedIn:		 yi.liu3@mail.mcgill.ca
Info: Yi was born in Hunan, China. She obtained her B. S. degree in chemistry at Xiangtan University in 2013. She completed her master study in 2016 from Memorial University of Newfoundland in Prof. Christopher M. Kozak’s lab, where she studied organozinc complexes for ring-opening polymerizations. In 2021, she obtained her Ph.D. degree from McGill University under the supervision of Prof. Bruce A. Arndtsen in studying palladium-catalyzed carbonylations for the generation of acylating electrophiles via ligand effects and/or visible light. She completed her postdoctoral research in the lab of Prof. Todd K. Hyster at Cornell and Princeton, where she mainly focused on developing unnatural oxidative reactions with flavin-dependent enzymes. She is currently an assistant professor at Penn State University. Outside of the lab, she enjoys painting and spending time with friends. Visit Yi's Group Website.

 
Project description: 1. Palladium catalyzed generation of Freidel-Crafts acylating electrophiles from organotriflates and pyridines. 2. Palladium catalyzed carbonylation chemistry using visible light.

 

Publications:

1) "A Visible Light Driven Nickel Carbonylation Catalyst: The Synthesis of Acid Chlorides from Alkyl Halides"
Kristian El Chami, Yi Liu, Mohammed A. Belahouane, Yiyang Ma, Pierre-Louis Lagueux-Tremblay, Bruce A. Arndtsen*
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2023, 62, e202213297.

2) "Palladium-Catalyzed Chlorocarbonylation of C(sp2)-Triflates as a Route to Heteroarene C–H Functionalization and Ketone Synthesis"
Yi Liu and Bruce A. Arndtsen* Organometallics 2022, 41, 2903-2908.

3) "Versatile Palladium-Catalyzed Approach to Acyl Fluorides and Carbonylations by Combining Visible Light- and Ligand-Driven Operations"
Yi Liu, Cuihan Zhou, Meijing Jiang, and Bruce A. Arndtsen* J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2022, 144, 9413-9420.

4) "Palladium Catalyzed Carbonylative Generation of Potent, Pyridine-Based Acylating Electrophiles for the Functionalization of Arenes to Ketones"
Yi Liu, Angela M. Kaiser and Bruce A. Arndtsen* Chem. Sci. 2020, 11, 8610-8616.

5) "A dual light-driven palladium catalyst: Breaking the barriers in carbonylation reactions"
Gerardo M. Torres, Yi Liu (co-first author), Bruce A. Arndtsen* Science 2020, 368, 318-323.

6) "Bimetallic and trimetallic zinc amino-bis(phenolate) complexes for ring-opening polymerization of rac-lactide"
Yi Liu, Christopher M. Kozak* Dalton Trans. 2019, 48, 13699-13710.