The Role of Water and Other Solvents in Chemical Reactivity

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Professor Wilse Robinson is funded by a grant from the Experimental Physical Chemistry Program to study the role which water and other solvents play in chemical reactivity. These studies are extremely important in order to further our molecular level understanding of chemical reactions which take place in solution. Robinson's research is directed toward a better molecular-level structural description of the ultrafast dynamics of solvent participation in chemical reactions. The methodology of these studies will combine picosecond and femtosecond spectroscopies with intuition gained from supercomputer modeling and pure theory. Water as a solvent is a special case, and will be the focus of much of the research effort. It is a highly structured liquid having moderately strong directional bonding. The presence of specific solvent structural moieties in fundamental ionic reactions involving the proton, the hydroxyl ion and the electron is indicated. Perturbations by foreign cations and anions, by pH, temperature, pressure and by the addition of other solvents will be elucidated.