Metal-Rich Halides as Precursors for Solution Cluster Chemistry and the Exploitation of Ionic Liquids as Solvent

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Dr. Timothy Hughbanks, Department of Chemistry, Texas A & M University, is supported by the Inorganic, Bioinorganic, and Organometallic Program of the Chemistry Division for an investigation of the solution chemistry of polymers and clusters containing metal-metal bonds and of ionic liquids as media for the crystallization of cluster based compounds. Group 3, 4, and lanthanide clusters, which are known to exist in the solid state, will be extracted into solution using an imidizolium/aluminum trichloride mixture, which is liquid at room temperature. The solution medium will permit these clusters to be characterized as molecular species and to be manipulated in a more controlled, rational fashion than is possible with purely solid state phases. The project will initially concentrate on a series of zirconium based systems and will develop these as precursors to extended clusters and polymers. As the project progresses, a systematic investigation will be carried out on the use of ionic liquids as solvents for the preparation and crystallization of a variety of cluster compounds. This project aims at devising a new method of preparing and manipulating polymers composed of metal atoms. While such metal species are known to exist in the solid state, the syntheses are not simple and it is often impossible to use these cluster and polymeric substances as, for example, starting materials for more complex polymers or clusters. A new 'ionic' solvent system has been devised and this will be used to dissolve the materials from the solid. By obtaining them in solution, it will be possible to both characterize them and utilize them to reproducibly form new, presently unknown materials.