Arjan W. Kleij

Institut Català d'Investigació Química

Experimental Sciences & Mathematics

Arjan obtained his MSc (with honors) and PhD (Cum Laude) from the University of Utrecht (Netherlands). In 2002 he moved to Spain as a postdoctoral NWO TALENT fellow with Javier de Mendoza, and then he held another postdoc appointment at the University of Amsterdam (The Netherlands) working with Joost Reek. He also held various scientific positions in the industry working as a project leader (Avantium Technologies) and senior research scientist (Hexion Specialty Chemicals). In 2006, he returned to Spain as ICREA Researcher and ICIQ Group Leader, and was promoted to ICREA Research Professor in 2011. He is member of the advisory board of Current Organic Chemistry (2014-), ChemSusChem (2016-), Journal of CO2 Utilization (2017-), and Molecules (2017-). Guest editor for Catal. Sci. & Technol. (2014) and ChemSusChem (2016), chairman of the Carbon Dioxide Conversion Catalysis conference in Albufeira (Portugal) in 2016. Total citations >6600 and current h-index of 46.


Research interests

The research of my group focuses on the valorization of small molecules (including CO2) into value-added chemicals and materials. We design new and more sustainable catalytic methods for their conversion and use in organic synthesis. As a key enabling technology, we use homogeneous catalysis approaches based on metal complexes and/or organocatalysts, and investigate important process features such as catalyst recycling, energy/material efficiencies and overall selectivity/reactivity profiles. In all these endeavors, we wish to solve challenging stereoselective and enantioselective transformations including those focusing on the preparation of allylic compounds featuring quaternary stereocenters.

Selected publications

- Sopena S, Martin E, Escudero-Adan EC & Kleij AW 2017, 'Pushing the Limits with Squaramide-Based Organocatalysts in Cyclic Carbonate Synthesis', Acs Catalysis, 7, 5, 3532 - 3539.

- Pena Carrodeguas L, Martin C & Kleij AW 2017, 'Semiaromatic Polyesters Derived from Renewable Terpene Oxides with High Glass Transitions', Macromolecules, 50, 14, 5337 - 5345.

- Laserna V, Martin E, Escudero-Adan EC & Kleij AW 2017, 'Substrate-Triggered Stereoselective Preparation of Highly Substituted Organic Carbonates', Acs Catalysis, 7, 8, 5478 - 5482.

- Guo W, Cai A, Xie J & Kleij AW 2017, 'Asymmetric Synthesis of ,-Disubstituted Allylic Amines through Palladium-Catalyzed Allylic Substitution', Angewandte Chemie-international Edition, 56, 39, 11797 - 11801.

- Enrique Gomez J, Guo W, Gaspa S & Kleij AW 2017, 'Copper-Catalyzed Synthesis of gamma-Amino Acids Featuring Quaternary Stereocenters', Angewandte Chemie-international Edition, 56, 47, 15035 - 15038.

- Xie J, Guo W, Cai A, Escudero-Adan EC & Kleij AW 2017, 'Pd-Catalyzed Enantio- and Regioselective Formation of Allylic Aryl Ethers', Organic Letters, 19, 23, 6388 - 6391.

- Kindermann N, Cristofol A & Kleij AW 2017, 'Access to Biorenewable Polycarbonates with Unusual Glass Transition Temperature (T-g) Modulation', Acs Catalysis, 7, 6, 3860 - 3863.


Selected research activities

* Selected as chairman of the 4th EuCheMS Congress on Green and Sustainable Chemistry (EuGSC) in 2019 (Tarragona)

* Offered a visiting professorship (Dalian University, China) in 2018

* Selected keynote/invited lectures: ICCDU XV (Shanghai), LIKAT (Rostock, Germany), MSE Symposium at VISTEC (Thailand), 3rd EuGSC conference (York, UK), Henkel (Dusseldorf, Germany), Institute of Process Engineering - Division of IL (CAS, Beijing), ICASEC Summer School (Gottingen, Germany).

* Selected for an Angewandte "Author Profile"