Synthesis and Reactivity of Fluorinated High Oxidation State Complexes

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This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). This Research award in the Inorganic, Bioinorganic and Organometallic Chemistry program supports work by Professor Linda Doerrer at Boston University to carry out fundamental and basic studies on transition metal complexes with fluorinated groups bound to them through oxygen atoms. These metals such as iron, cobalt, nickel and copper have been used by humans for millennia but only now are we working to make as efficient use of them as possible. Professor Doerrer has chosen to study these earth abundant materials in combination with Teflon-coated groups that make them very stable under harsh reaction conditions. When in the presence of highly reactive species that transfer oxygen or nitrogen atoms, these robust metal-alkoxide molecules have the ability to form new compounds more efficiently than previous generations of molecules. The latter would partially self-destruct along the way. For environmentally benign processes and efficient production, understanding the fundamentals of the reaction of the metal compound with the carbon-based substrates is critical. This research program will have a profound influence on the lives of several young scientists that participate in and are trained through the program, including graduate and undergraduate students. These students will further influence the high school students who work in and visit the Doerrer lab and see the extension of their classroom-based ideas into the unknown realm of contemporary research at the frontiers of inorganic chemistry. The overall impact of this work will lead to improved understanding of materials and methods for synthesizing high value carbon-based compounds for use in many realms of human endeavor.