Novel Bonding Environments and Reactivity for Heavy Main Group Metals

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The primary goal of this proposal is to develop the rich and tunable reaction chemistry of main group organometallic complexes (i.e. those of indium and bismuth), and exploit their use as alternatives to expensive and toxic transition metal and rare earth coordination complexes for green chemical processes. This is being achieved through the synthesis and characterization of novel Lewis acidic and redox active compounds which employ informed ligand design to afford reactive metal centres. The resulting compounds will be screened for stability and reactivity as catalysts for select chemical reactions under various aqueous and non-aqueous reaction conditions. This work will have a high impact on: 1) synthetic organic, inorganic and organometallic chemistry - in the development of facile routes to new polyfunctional thiol ligands and main group metal thiolate compounds, and identification of new reactivity for In(II)/Bi(II) species to yield novel chemical motifs; and 2) catalysis/green chemistry - through the screening of hydrolytically stable cation indium- and bismuth bis-thiolates as catalysts for reactions in aqueous media for the production of biofuels, and the screening of organoindium and -bismuth bis-thiolate compounds for the ROP of cyclic esters for the preparation of biodegradable and biorenewable polymers. These contributions will demonstrate the hitherto under explored potential of these organometallic main group compounds as key components in the development of sustainable and environmentally friendly technologies.