Christo Sevov

About

Christo Sevov is a professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at The Ohio State University. Born in Sofia, Bulgaria, he moved to the United States at a young age and spent his formative years in South Bend, Indiana. He earned his B.S. in 2009 from the University of Notre Dame, where he worked with Prof. Olaf Wiest on photocatalyzed cycloaddition reactions. Sevov completed his Ph.D. in 2014, beginning his studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign with Prof. John Hartwig and later transferring to the University of California Berkeley, focusing on the development and mechanistic study of metal-catalyzed additions of C–H, N–H, and O–H bonds across alkenes. Following his doctoral work, he conducted postdoctoral research with Prof. Melanie Sanford at the University of Michigan, where he applied organic chemistry approaches to energy storage, specifically designing solvated battery materials for redox flow batteries. Sevov joined The Ohio State University faculty in July 2017 as an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. His research aims to develop strategies at the interface of homogeneous catalysis and electrochemistry for sustainable utilization of electrical energy from renewable sources, including the development of electrochemically-driven organic synthesis methods, valorization of biofeedstocks and waste recycling, and large-scale energy storage systems. His work emphasizes replacing toxic, explosive, or expensive…

Research topics

• Chemistry
• Materials science
• Combinatorial chemistry
• Crystallography
• Organic chemistry

Selected publications

• Controlling Ni redox states by dynamic ligand exchange for electroreductive Csp3–Csp2 coupling

  Science · 2022-04-21 · 190 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Cross-electrophile coupling (XEC) reactions of aryl and alkyl electrophiles are appealing but limited to specific substrate classes. Here, we report electroreductive XEC of previously incompatible electrophiles including tertiary alkyl bromides, aryl chlorides, and aryl/vinyl triflates. Reactions rely on the merger of an electrochemically active complex that selectively reacts with alkyl bromides through 1e – processes and an electrochemically inactive Ni 0 (phosphine) complex that selectively r…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• General C(sp²)–C(sp³) Cross-Electrophile Coupling Reactions Enabled by Overcharge Protection of Homogeneous Electrocatalysts

  Journal of the American Chemical Society · 2020-02-29 · 163 citations

  articleSenior authorCorresponding

  Cross-electrophile coupling (XEC) of alkyl and aryl halides promoted by electrochemistry represents an attractive alternative to conventional methods that require stoichiometric quantities of high-energy reductants. Most importantly, electroreduction can readily exceed the reducing potentials of chemical reductants to activate catalysts with improved reactivities and selectivities over conventional systems. This work details the mechanistically-driven development of an electrochemical methodolog…

  PublisherDOI

• Direct and Scalable Electroreduction of Triphenylphosphine Oxide to Triphenylphosphine

  Journal of the American Chemical Society · 2020-01-16 · 131 citations

  articleSenior authorCorresponding

  The direct and scalable electroreduction of triphenylphosphine oxide (TPPO)-the stoichiometric byproduct of some of the most common synthetic organic reactions-to triphenylphosphine (TPP) remains an unmet challenge that would dramatically reduce the cost and waste associated with performing desirable reactions that are mediated by TPP on a large scale. This report details an electrochemical methodology for the single-step reduction of TPPO to TPP using an aluminum anode in combination with a sup…

  PublisherDOI

• Copper-catalyzed electrochemical C–H fluorination

  Chem Catalysis · 2023-01-01 · 38 citations

  articleOpen accessCorresponding
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• <b>Nickel-Catalyzed Electroreductive Coupling of Alkylpyridinium Salts and Aryl Halides</b>

  ACS Catalysis · 2023-06-28 · 32 citations

  articleOpen accessCorresponding

  An electrochemical, nickel-catalyzed reductive coupling of alkylpyridinium salts and aryl halides is reported. High-throughput experimentation (HTE) was employed for rapid reaction optimization and evaluation of a broad scope of pharmaceutically relevant structurally diverse aryl halides, including complex drug-like substrates. In addition, the transformation is compatible with both primary and secondary alkylpyridinium salts with distinct conditions. Mechanistic insights were critical to enhanc…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• John F. Hartwig

  University of California, Berkeley

  34 shared

• Melanie S. Sanford

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  30 shared

• Jeffrey S. Moore

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  14 shared

• Joaquín Rodríguez‐López

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  11 shared

• Monique E. Cook

  Argonne National Laboratory

  10 shared

• Koen H. Hendriks

  Eindhoven University of Technology

  9 shared

• Jianrong Steve Zhou

  Peking University

  9 shared

• Brett A. Helms

  Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

  8 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Chemistry

  University of California Berkeley

  2014

• B.S., Chemistry and Biochemistry

  University of Notre Dame

  2009

Awards & honors

• John S. Swenton Award for Outstanding Teaching

Similar researchers at Ohio State University

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