Iridium Complexes on the Border between Organometallic and Coordination Complexes

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This award in the Inorganic, Bioinorganic and Organometallic Program will support continued work on iridium compounds by Dr. Jim D. Atwood of the State University of New York at Buffalo. The compounds are of general formula RIr(CO)L2, where R = alkyl, alkoxy, hydroxo, or chloro, and L = phosphine or substituted phosphine. These species will be used to probe three areas: to model catalytic reactions in aqueous solution, to study reactivity of complexes containing mixtures of hard and soft ligands, and to study the reactivity of complexes with gaseous sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxide. The first two projects are relevant to optimizing catalytic reactions and the third project may have implications for reducing air pollutants. For the first project, sulfonated phosphines will be used in order to solubilize the species in aqueous solution. In the second project, carbonate and sulfate ligands will be contained in the compounds, along with carbonyl and the alkoxy and phosphine groups. Preliminary evidence on related complexes suggests that substitution reactions of compounds containing both hard and soft ligands are rapid, and this phenomenon will be specifically investigated. In the third project, the substitution of sulfate ligands by sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxide will be investigated. If such reaction occurs, the gases will be effectively absorbed by a solid.