As Miyake and his colleagues at New Iridium saw the promise of remdesivir, and the ravages of COVID-19, they knew their research and patent-pending technology might be able to help.
Much of chemistry – and chemistry-based manufacturing – relies on heat to jumpstart chemical reactions. “Chemical catalysis is arguably the most important contribution that chemistry has made to society,” Miyake said. We have this process to thank for countless things we use every day, from plastics to household cleaners to common medicines.
At the molecular level, this heat breaks and reshapes chemical bonds physically. Practically speaking, this sort of chemical manipulation can take expensive equipment and create potentially hazardous work environments.
But Miyake’s work, which is part of an entirely new branch of the field called radical chemistry, leverages light to do this work. Instead of knocking apart molecular bonds with the vibrations from high temperatures, their so-called photoredox catalysis “captures energy from visible light and transfers that energy into the reaction mixture,” explained Chern-Hooi Lim, CEO and founder of New Iridium. “Using light, the molecules are not shaken, but rather the electrons change position, which induces the molecular transformation.”
Which means that reactions can take place in much less harsh conditions, and often even at room temperature.
“It’s a much more powerful tool than heat-driven approaches,” Lim said. He compares it to the technological leaps from land lines to cell phones or film to digital photography. “The new technologies can do tricks that are beyond the reach of traditional methods.”