Element-Element and Related Bonding in the Earlier Main Group Elements

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Dr. Philip P. Power, Chemistry Department, University of California - Davis, is supported by the Inorganic, Bioinorganic, and Organometallic Chemistry Program of the Chemistry Division to investigate element-element and related bonding in the earlier main group elements. The main thrust of the project involves the synthesis of new classes of compounds which may have multiple bonds between heavier group 13 elements and the preparation of kinetically stable, metal-metal bonded main group 2 and 12 element derivatives in which the metal has a formal oxidation state of +1. The new compounds are designed so they will contain bonding types not previously observed for these elements. By use of a variety of spectroscopic and structural methods the characteristics of these bonds will be probed in order to determine the nature of element-element interactions between the earlier main group atoms. The most important interactions which occurs in chemical compounds are the bonding which links the constituent atoms to one another. For carbon and other small non-metal atoms single, double, and triple bonds are well known, as are many correlations between the chemical bonding in a compound and its chemical properties. Up until only a few years ago, heavier atoms were thought to only form single bonds. More recently that dogma was overthrown and this study is aimed at exploring the possibility that atoms which are not known to form multiple bonds actually may be capable of doing so. These studies have great significance to our basic understanding of chemical bonding and open the way to the preparation of new chemical systems which may display entirely novel properties.