CAREER: Crystallography And Rare-Earth Educational and Research activities.

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This CAREER award in the Inorganic, Bioinorganic, and Organometallic program supports research and educational activities involving rare-earth complexes by Professor Gregory M. Ferrence at Illinois State University. One goal of this research is to modify the supporting ligand environments of Group 3 and lanthanide metals in order to gain insight into chemical structure and reactivity that is distinct to rare-earth compounds in their predominant trivalent oxidation state. Rare earth complexes with N-confused-porphyrin and carbaporphyrin ligands will be prepared, which are expected to display contrasting reactivity compared to their traditional porphyrin analogs. Divalent lanthanide complexes will also be studied by using trispyrazolylborate ligands in order to also provide a fundamental understanding of the chemistry of divalent lanthanides.The educational component of this proposal focuses on teaching principles and practices in X-ray crystallography by using extensive computer based course materials that better enable students to determine aspects of molecules dependent on three dimensional visualizations. Faculty and students from regional liberal arts colleges and universities will be involved so as to offer aspects of the X-ray course via distance education and to foster regional research collaborations.