List of Abstracts 2023: PLENARY SESSION

Achieving more sustainable chemical processes and enabling a circular economy are major goals of chemical research, which play significant roles in the implementation of resource- and cost-efficient chemical industry as well as the advancement of society with respect to health, energy and environment. In this regard, the valorization of more abundant feedstocks, renewable resources and waste-materials as well as energy and material technologies are of prime importance. In order to achieve these goals, the development and applicability of suitable catalytic processes is crucial. The major challenge in catalysis is to create ‘ideal catalysts’ which should be more stable and easily recyclable as well as highly selective and active. We are dealing on how to combine both homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis aspects to create such ‘ideal catalytic systems’, especially based on nanoparticles (NPs) and single atoms (SACs) for advanced chemical synthesis. Consequently, in the talk the design and catalytic applications of specific NPs and SACs as well as molecularly defined complexes for sustainable synthesis of essential fine and bulk chemicals as well as molecules used in life science applications will be presented. Next, catalytic applications on the valorization of renewable feedstocks (biomass and CO2) and recycling/upscaling of plastics-waste for enabling sustainable and circular chemistry will be discussed. Finally, hydrogenation and dehydrogenation processes for liquid organic hydrogen carriers (LOHC) applications will be highlighted. REFERENCES: [1] V. G. Chandrashekhar, W. Baumann, M. Beller and R. V. Jagadeesh, Science, 2022, 376, 1433.; [2] V. Jagadeesh, K. Murugesan, A. S. Alshammari, H. Neumann, M.-M. Pohl, J. Radnik and M. Beller, Science, 2017, 358, 326.; [3] R. V. Jagadeesh, A. E. Surkus, H. Junge, M. M. Pohl, J. Radnik, J. Rabeah, H. Huan, V. Schünemann, A. Brückner and M. Beller, Science, 2013, 342, 1073.; [4] V. G. Chandrashekhar, T. Senthamarai, R. G. Kadam, O. Malina, J. Kašlík, R. Zbořil, M. B. Gawande, R. V. Jagadeesh and M. Beller, Nature Catal., 2022, 5, 20.; [5] K. Murugesan, Z. Wei, V. G. Chandrashekhar, H. Neumann, A. Spannenberg, H. Jiao, M. Beller and R. V. Jagadeesh, Nature Commun., 2019, 10, 5443.; [6] B. Zhou, V. Chandrashekhar, Z. Ma, C. Kreyenschulte, S. Bartling, H. Lund, M. Beller and R. V. Jagadeesh, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2023, 62, e20221569.

Diabetes is defined as a chronic elevation of glycemia. Due to acute and chronic complications, the disease poses a major economic, social, and medical burden on society worldwide. Diabetes is characterized by insufficient insulin plasma level to meet the organism demand. In type 1 diabetes, absolute deficiency of insulin production results from massive auto-immune destruction of pancreatic beta cells. For this reason, the main therapy consists in delivering exogenous insulin. The treatment methods require numerous daily injections of insulin administered by subcutaneous needle injection, insulin pen and catheters connected to insulin pumps. These methods are however both painful and inconvenient as the invasive multiple injections of precisely calculated amounts of insulin present a significant deterioration of the life quality of the diabetic patients. The discomfort associated with this type of administration has led diabetic patients to neglect or even give up the therapy. There is thus an increasing demand for the design of new insulin administration systems and this has led to the investigations of oral, nasal, buccal, pulmonary, rectal, ocular and transdermal routes.
Transdermal delivery of insulin, a simple and painless method, represents a viable alternative for the controlled release of insulin over time together with high patience compliance. However, transdermal delivery is limited by the low permeability of the stratum corneum, the skin outermost layer, allowing only small (<500 Da) hydrophobic molecules to be delivered. In this presentation, I will discuss our original contribution on insulin transdermal delivery upon photothermal or electrothermal activation.