Dr. Aymane Selmani received the Excellence Award from the Société Chimique de France – Ile-de-France in the “Organic Chemistry” category for his PhD defended at Chimie ParisTech – PSL and Sorbonne Université.

From engineering to doctoral studies: a look back at an exceptional course. After two years of CPGE, Aymane Selmani joined ENSIACET INP-Toulouse in the Department of Chemical Engineering. Then, thanks to the bridges offered by the Federation Gay Lussac, he completed his final year of engineering at Chimie ParisTech – PSL, and in parallel, he followed the Master in Molecular Chemistry at Sorbonne Université.

After obtaining his engineering and master degrees, he continued his doctoral studies at Chimie ParisTech – PSL under the supervision of Dr. Sylvain Darses at the Institute of Chemistry for Life & Health Sciences / CSB2D team. With his thesis entitled “Rhodium-catalyzed asymmetric cascade reactions : novel routes to chiral carbo- and heterocycles” defended in 2019, he is particularly interested in the use of rhodium complexes as catalysts for asymmetric cascade reactions

A thesis in touch with societal issues: Green Chemistry. Chemistry is a very present field in our society and the consequences of its industry from an environmental point of view are raising more and more questions, especially in these times when ecological transition policies are increasing. In order to provide solutions to these growing issues, the concept of Green Chemistry and the twelve principles that result from it were created. These include the notion of atom economy, use of safer chemicals and less polluting solvents, reduction of by-products and catalysis.

Aymane Selmani explains:

“It is around these four themes that we wanted to develop, during this PhD work, new catalytic reactions respectful of these principles. From an industrial point of view, the synthesis of biologically active compounds without transition-metal catalysis is almost unthinkable today. As proof, 90% of chemical compounds are produced by catalytic routes and catalysis contributes directly and indirectly to 25% of the GNP of western countries. My thesis work has always been thought out in such a way as to develop new synthetic approaches that can lead to real industrial applications, in particular by respecting as much as possible the principles of Green Chemistry. Thus, a significant number of asymmetric cascade reactions have been developed with a particular effort focused on the use of greener reaction conditions, in particular through the use of less polluting solvents and non-toxic, stable and widely available commercially reagents. Finally, all these reactions have been designed with a view to provide easily modular and diversifiable methods in order to offer numerous opportunities in the development of active complex molecules (chiral or not), in particular for the pharmaceutical and agrochemical industries.”

Currently, Aymane Selmani joined, as post-doctoral research, Prof. Franziska Schoenebeck’s group at RWTH Aachen University (Aachen, Germany). His research field is now focused on germanium chemistry, in particular through organometallic catalysis, C-H activation or even photochemistry.

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