Research Interests
The research program in WU group have broadly and deeply involved in two research fields of organic synthesis, including photocatalysis and continuous-flow automated synthesis. Our long-term goal is to advance otherwise difficult or ineffective chemical reactions using advanced flow techniques, as well as to develop new chemical strategies to aid the automated multistep synthesis. The research program in my lab can be divided into five parts: 1) Development of engineered flow reactors. A centerpiece of research in my group relies on the unique advantages provided by micro-tubing reactors. 2) Exploring new fundamental reactions that directly transform natural gas feedstocks into value-added fine chemicals by harvesting visible-light as energy input. This project takes advantage of the super efficiency of biphasic gas/liquid reactions and enhanced photo-irradiation in micro-tubing reactors. 3) Development of photo-mediated hydrogen atom transfer strategies for C-H, Si-H, and B-H functionalization to convert readily available alkanes, hydrosilanes, and boranes into valuable products in an atom- and step-economic fashion. 4) Development of novel heterogeneous photocatalysts. This project aims to take advantage of the heterogeneous catalysis in flow reactors for sustainable chemical manufacturing. 5) Development of end-to-end automated synthesis of APIs. Our group’s research is truly multidisciplinary including both organic chemistry and engineering aspects, which provides opportunities to learn areas of research outside of traditional organic synthesis. Students in my group will get trained on photocatalysis, continuous-flow synthesis, multistep synthesis, and green chemistry. They will build indepth chemistry background and strong problem-solving techniques. The advantages of continuous flow processing are increasingly being appreciated both by industry and academia, and students expertise in this field will find enormous job opportunities.