Electronic Symmetry and Dissymmetry in Catalysis

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Professor Seth Brown, a faculty member in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Notre Dame, is supported by the Inorganic, Bioinorganic and Organometallic Chemistry Program to test two hypotheses concerning transition metal catalyst design. The first hypothesis is that the trans effect can be influential in matching transition state energies with substrate donor properties in catalytic reactions requiring two-site substrate binding. The second hypothesis is that electronic dissymmetry, that is a chiral bonding pattern, can discriminate between enantiomers, so chiral steric factors are not a prerequisite for diastereoselective reaction control. Octahedral titanium(IV) complexes bound to beta-diketonate ligand derivatives will be used to probe these hypotheses.The importance of catalysis in the chemical industry both for conserving energy and for controlling stereochemistry insures the impact of improving our mechanistic understanding of catalytic cycles. This project provides insight into chemical principles characteristic of early transition metal organometallic complexes that will guide future catalyst design.