Staff Profile

Dr Karodia's main interests cover the following areas: Green Chemistry, Stereoselective Synthesis, Synthesis and biological activity of heterocyclic compounds, Natural Product Synthesis and Heterogeneous Catalysis.

Green Chemistry

Conventional molecular solvents such as dichloromethane and benzene have environmental and related disadvantages arising from their toxicity. These conventional solvents tend to have very limited solubility in water, are volatile and are not easy to recycle. It is desirable to investigate whether industrially important synthetic processes may be done in organic solvents that have ionic character in order to probe the possibility of removing the reliance on molecular solvents. The different solubility properties of these solvents may facilitate their disposal in safer and environmentally less damaging ways. In addition the low volatility of these ionic solvents means that their escape into the atmosphere as vapours is unlikely to be significant. The ionic solvents could be easily recycled, thus reducing the overall use of solvents in organic synthesis. Phosphonium salts have properties that make them promising candidates for use as ionic or 'green' solvents. Initial work on this project was started in December by postgraduate scholar, Petra Ludley.

Stereoselective Synthesis

Fundamental research in the next decade will concentrate on more efficient catalysis including processes involving additions of nucleophiles to double bonds, perfect atom economic procedures, and asymmetric catalysis. The Baylis-Hillman reaction incorporates these features. This reaction is an efficient, selective and economical method for the construction of carbon-carbon bonds, fundamental in organic synthesis. Selective formation of the stereocentre would provide access to optically enriched multifunctional products. These products are of interest to the fine chemical industry. Dr Karodia's research team is currently attempting to sythesise and screen a range of chiral catalysts for the Baylis-Hillman reaction.

Synthesis and biological activity of heterocyclic compounds

Heterocyclic compounds constitute a significant class of pharmaceutical agents in medicinal chemistry. They have extensive applications which include antibacterial, antiviral, anticancer and antioxidant activity. Our objective is the exploration of new synthetic methodologies and the development of more efficient reaction pathways for the synthesis of heterocyclic compounds, including substituted benzimidazole, imidazole, benzoxazole and benzothiophene derivatives, as potential therapeutic agents. Projects in this area are in collaboration with Professor A. Nicolaou and Dr A. Snelling

Natural Product Synthesis

Projects in this area are in collaboration with Professor A. S. Awaad and Dr M. Zain where the isolation and synthesis of biologicaly active compounds from fungi are investigated.