Presidential Young Investigator Award: Chemistry of Metal-Oxo Complexes

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

This Presidential Young Investigator Award from the Inorganic, Bioinorganic and Organometallic Chemistry Program is in the area of organometallic chemistry. The focus of the project is compounds with metal-ligand multiple bonds, in particular metal-oxo complexes. The goal is to understand at a fundamental level the electronic and geometric factors that influence the strength, stability and reactivity of metal-ligand multiple bonds. The recent discovery of novel low-valent rhenium-oxo compounds, together with studies of their electronic structure and their reaction chemistry, has thrown new light on the unusual properties of terminal oxo ligands. The information derived from the rhenium-oxo compounds will be used in designing highly reactive metal-oxo complexes. This is a new field of substantial importance. Metal oxides are widely used as catalysts, catalyst supports and as reagents for selective transformations of organic compounds. A number of enzymatic reactions involve metal-oxo species, and the metal-oxo group is a fundamental building block of many important solid-state materials.