Amarasekara

Ananda Amarasekara

Assistant Professor

Ph.D., City University of New York (1985)

Contact information:

Room: 230F NSB, Department of Chemistry

P.O. Box 519, Prairie View A&M University, Prairie View, Texas 77446

Phone: 936-261-3107, Fax: 936-261-3117, e-mail: asamarasekara@pvamu.edu

Areas of interest

·        New synthetic methods

·        Biomass based chemical feedstock

·        Catalysis

Current Activities

·         Development of chemical feedstock from renewable resources is of current interest with the inevitable declining of petroleum resources. In the front line of this generation of feedstock chemicals are triglycerides, 1,2-propanediol, succinic acid, furfural and 5-hydroxymethyl furfural (HMF) produced from plants and biomass. We are currently studying the production of HMF by metal catalyzed degradation of cellulose and by dehydration of fructose. HMF has found a special place in this category of chemicals as a bifunctional heterocyclic system with the potential to be converted to a variety of useful intermediates for polymers and many other fine chemicals. Oxidation of HMF using green-chemistry technologies is another area of interest, which involves the development of catalysts for economical and environmentally friendly oxidation methods for the preparation of furan-dialdehyde and furan-dicarboxilic acid from HMF. We are investigating the synthesis of next generation biodegradable polymeric materials from these renewable resources based furans.

·         Insoluble polymer supported metal catalysts show longer life, better selectivity, higher efficiency and are easily separated from reactants and products compared to homogeneous catalysts. Novel immobilization techniques using silica sol-gel methods for Co, Mn, and Fe based catalytic systems are another area of current research. These catalytic systems will be used in oxidation, epoxide ring opening, cycloaddition and polymerization reactions.

Selected recent publications

(6 out of >50 publications)



·         Ananda S. Amarasekara, Dalkeith Green, Erinn McMillan. Efficient oxidation of 5-

      hydroxymethylfurfural to 2,5-diformylfuran using Mn(III)-salen catalysts.

     Catalysis Communications. 9, 286-88, 2008

·         Ananda S. Amarasekara, Aderemi R. Oki, Ivana McNeal, Uchenna Uzoezie.

     One-pot synthesis of cobalt-salen catalyst immobilized in silica by sol-gel process and

     applications in selective oxidations of alkanes and alkenes.

     Catalysis Communications. 8, 1132-36, 2007

·         Ananda S. Amarasekara, Edigin Osayamen and Wendy Hernandez. Cycloaddition

      reactions of 5-hydroxymethyl-furan–2-nitrileoxide.

     Letters in Organic Chemistry. 4(5), 306-08, 2007

·         Ananda S. Amarasekara, Gloria Opoku, Xiangdong Qiu, Vasant Doctor. Effect of

     oversulfation on the chemical and biological properties of chondroitin-6-sulfate.

     Carbohydrate Polymers. 68(11), 116-21, 2007

·         Ananda S. Amarasekara, Wendy Hernandez, Paul Bonham. Baker’s yeast

     (Saccharomyces cereviasiae) mediated transformations of C-aryl-N-phenylnitrones.

     Tetrahedron Letters. 47(28), 4893-95, 2006

·      Ananda S. Amarasekara. Nitrosation of b'-hydroxylamino-a, b-unsaturated oximes:

     Synthesis of 1,7- dioxa-2,6-diaza-spiro[4,4]nona-2,8-diene ring system.

     Tetrahedron Letters. 46(15), 2635-38, 2005