Jesús Campos Manzano

Group: Organometallic Chemistry: structure, reactivity and aplications

Position: Scientific Researcher

Contact

Tel. ext: 446254

Laboratory: L 202

Office: D S207

Email:

ORCID: 0000-0002-5155-1262

🌐 QUIMERA

Biography

Jesús Campos obtained his BSc in Chemistry from the University of Seville in 2007 and completed his MSc at the University of Manchester. He earned his PhD in Organometallic Chemistry under Prof. Ernesto Carmona, including a research stay with Prof. Maurice Brookhart (North Carolina, USA) and a second Master’s in Crystallography from the Universidad Internacional Menéndez Pelayo. He then carried out postdoctoral research with Prof. Robert H. Crabtree (Yale, USA) on sustainable catalysis and Prof. Simon Aldridge (Oxford, UK) on main group chemistry. He returned to the University of Seville in 2016 as a Talentia Fellow and was awarded a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship that same year. In 2018, he was appointed Tenured Scientist at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) in Seville, and promoted to Senior Scientist in 2022. Since joining CSIC, he has developed his independent research career on cooperative molecular systems for bond activation and catalysis, with emphasis on bimetallic systems. He has secured national and European funding, including two ERC projects (Starting Grant, 2017; Consolidator Grant, 2024), as well as support from BBVA Foundation Leonardo Grants, Ramón Areces Foundation, and MSCA programs, among others.

He has supervised 13 PhD theses (4 ongoing) and around 20 master’s and undergraduate projects. He has also mentored 12 postdoctoral researchers (6 MSCA, 2 Juan de la Cierva, 2 Margarita Salas fellows) and hosted 18 international visitors at different career stages.

He is the author of about 110 scientific publications, a member of the Young Academy of Spain, and was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley. His research has been recognized with several distinctions, including the María Teresa Toral National Young Research Award, the RSEQ and GEQO Excellence in Research Awards, the Lilly/RSEQ Young Researcher Award, and the Organometallics Distinguished Author Award.

Research interests

Research in our lab focuses on the use of organometallic and coordination complexes to tackle challenging chemical transformations of economic and environmental significance. We put emphasis on the study of reaction mechanisms and the development of new modes of chemical cooperation. In fact, one of our main goals on every project that we develop is to explore the synergies that connect several molecular fragments or atoms to mediate any transformation. In doing so we are currently developing strategies for cooperative small molecule activation and catalysis using transition metal and main group organometallic complexes. We believe that cooperativity will be crucial to overcome the main limitations of current catalytic protocols. Nature (enzymes) relies on cooperativity and confinement to be the masters of catalysis. We aim to create synthetic approaches that permit to disclose and study in detail these processes, mostly relying on bimetallic architectures and the use of crowded spaces at molecular level.

How do we work?

Synthesis. We use common techniques for the preparation and handling of oxygen- and moisture-sensitive organometallic and coordination compounds, including Schlenk and glove-box techniques.

Characterization. Homogeneous systems are characterized through spectroscopic (NMR, IR, HRMS, UV-vis, EPR) and analytical methods (Elemental Analysis). Students in our group acquire considerable expertise in NMR spectroscopy, including the analysis of weak interactions, dynamic behavior, variable temperature… Particular emphasis is given to X-ray diffraction techniques for structural determination.

Reactivity/Catalysis. We investigate all aspects of reactivity and catalysis, particularly in challenging transformations. There is no specific target if the transformation looks interesting, but we love to focus on challenging small molecules such as carbon dioxide and other oxides, ammonia, as well as C-H bonds, among others. Rather than long scopes, we are more interested in acquiring mechanistic understanding by both experimental and computational investigations.

Selected publications

• Pita-Milleiro, A.; Hidalgo, N.; Moreno, J. J.; Fernández, I.; Campos, J.* An open-shell Ir(II)/Ir(IV) redox couple outperforms an Ir(I)/Ir(III) pair in olefin isomerization, Nat. Chem. 2025, DOI : 10.1038/s41557-024-01722-7.
• Serrano-Díez, E.; Pita-Milleiro, A.; Rangel-García, J.; Moreno, J. J.; Roselló-Merino, M.; Campos, J.* Reversible Bimetallic Inhibition to Modulate Selectivity During Catalysis, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2025, 147, 1271
• Bajo, S.; Soto, E.; Fernández-Buenestado, M.; López-Serrano, J.*; Campos, J.* A low-coordinate platinum(0)-germylene for E–H bond activation and catalytic hydrodehalogenation, Nat. Commun. 2024, 15, 9656.
• Johnson, C. L.; Storm, D. J.; Sajjad, M.A.; Gyton, M. R.; Duckett, S. B.*; Macgregor, S. A.*; Weller, A. S.*; Navarro, M.*; Campos. J.* A Gold(I)–Acetylene Complex Synthesised using Single-Crystal Reactivity, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2024, e202404264.
• Corona, H.; Pérez-Jiménez, de la Cruz-Martínez, F.; M.; Fernández, I.*; Campos, J.* Divergent CO2 Activation by Tuning the Lewis Acid in Iron-Based Bimetallic Systems, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2022, 61, e202207581.