Reactivity consequences of electronic and spin state effects in organometallic chemistry

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I propose an integrated synthetic, mechanistic, and computational study to probe selectively the effects of electronic configuration and spin state on the stoichiometric reactions fundamental to organometallic catalysis. Careful interplay of metal properties and ligand design will allow for the synthesis of compounds wherein steric and/or electronic modification to the periphery of the ligand sphere will adjust the orbital splitting and pairing energies at the metal centre, either inductively or by adjusting the coordination geometry, thereby selectively tuning the spin state energies of the compound. This will allow for the synthesis of pairs or series of compounds with identical metals and oxidation states in similar coordination environments, but differing ground state spin, permitting a systematic mechanistic study of how the spin state of a complex alone affects the thermodynamics and kinetics of the reactions that make up organometallic catalytic cycles.