Personale docente

Prof. Raimondo Maggi, born in Parma on 4th March 1963, graduated in Chemistry in March 1989.
During the three years period 1989-1992 he developed his PhD thesis in Chemical Sciences at the Institute of Organic Chemistry of the University of Parma (title: "Coordinated Friedel-Crafts Reactions on Aromatic Systems" supervisors: Prof. G. Casnati and Prof. G. Sartori).
From June 1994 to August 1995 he developed his post-doctorate researches at the Laboratoire de Chimie Organique of the University of Lausanne (supervisor Prof. M. Schlosser), studying the use of superbases for metalation reactions of variously substituted aromatic substrates.
During the period September 1994 - April 1997 he had two grants at the Department of Organic and Industrial Chemistry of the University of Parma.
In May 1997 he got a Researcher position in Organic Chemistry (C05X) at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Parma.
In November 2002 he was promoted to Associate Professor of Organic Chemistry (CHIM/06) at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Parma, where he teaches Organic Chemistry B (Degree in Environmental Sciences), Environmental Organic Chemistry (Degree in Packaging Science and Technology), Laboratory of Organic Chemistry I (Degree in Industrial Chemistry), Laboratory of Organic Chemistry (Degree in Material Science and Technology) and Laboratory of Organic Chemistry (Degree in Packaging Science and Technology).
Prof. Raimondo Maggi is member of the "Clean Synthetic Methodologies" group of the Department of Organic and Industrial Chemistry of the University of Parma.
Since the begin of his research, Prof. Raimondo Maggi focused his activity on the functionalisation of aromatic substrates. In particular the regio- and stereoselective functionalisation of variously substituted phenols has been faced through the metal-template catalysis. By utilising magnesium, aluminium or titanium phenolates it has been possible to direct the functionalisation at the ortho-position or at the para-one by exploiting or not the formation of auto-organised complexes.
The aromatic substrates functionalisation has also been obtained through metalation reactions by using the so called Schlosser superbases. The selective functionalisation of para-methoxyaniline ortho to both methoxy and amino groups has been achieved; in addition, studies on the competitive metalation of mono- and dimethoxyarenes as well as on the dimetalation of arenes have been successfully accomplished.
In the last fifteen years the research activity of Prof. Raimondo Maggi has been mainly focused on the preparation, characterization and use of heterogeneous acid and basic catalysts for the synthesis of fine chemicals and pharmaceuticals. In fact it is well known that the fine chemical and pharmaceutical production sectors at industrial level are those responsible of the production of the greatest quantity of by-products and waste (from 5 to 100 kilograms per kilogram of product) with negative consequences from both economic and environmental point of view. This is mainly due to the frequent use of stoichiometric processes and to the use of synthetic strategies that imply more steps. In fact in the traditional organic syntheses the main objective has always been the final target, independent from the amount and nature of reagents, solvents and promoters utilised, considering that the greatest part of the processes employed at industrial level have been studied and
discovered during a historical period in which the environmental problems were not considered due to the more pressing problems of the economic development.
The approach characterising the researches of Prof. Raimondo Maggi aims to the synthesis of the target products by minimizing the waste formation and realising at the same time the followings three conditions: use of low cost heterogeneous catalysts (such as zeolites, amorphous silicas, MCM-type mesoporous silicas, clays, mixed oxides, organic-inorganic hybrid (chiral) materials), possibility to operate in absence of solvent or in eco-compatible solvents (for instance water) and use of "cascade" or "multicomponent" processes. The attainable goals are therefore the minimisation of inorganic salts production, the minimisation of the solvent amounts and the reuse of the catalyst, after filtering, for many reactive cycles, with evident economic and ecological advantages.
More recently Prof. Maggi is involved in the development of continuous flow reactions carried out in microreactors packed with solid catalysts for the preparation of pharmaceuticals and fine chemicals. This methodology allows a lower stress of the catalyst (and consequently a longer lifetime), a higher process safety, a better reproducibility and a facile automation, with the possibility to carry out in a multistep synthetic approach many sequential reactive processes by combining microreactors packed with different catalysts.
Prof. Raimondo Maggi is author of more than 100 publications appeared on international journals, of 8 chapters of books and one international patent. His researches appeared also in about 70 posters and oral communications in national and international conferences