Presidential Young Investigator: Chemistry of Soluble and Solid State Metal Chalcogenides

这项由无机化学、生物无机化学和金属有机化学项目颁发的总统青年研究员奖将支持Merouri Kanatzidis博士在重金属硫和硒化合物化学方面的研究。研究计划的一个方面将集中在Ru/硫化合物的化学上，目的是对多相催化过程获得新的见解，例如二硫化Ru对石油的加氢脱硫。研究计划的第二个方面涉及无机化学和材料科学的交界处的研究。合成无机化学技术将被用于生产新材料的前体，如低维金属间化合物合金。含有过渡后期和主族金属被硒或碲桥联的阴离子可溶簇合物将在溶液中形成，然后与镉等重金属沉淀形成新的固体化合物。以这种方式合成的物质的实例具有组合物Cd：Hg：TE=1：1：8，并且在低能量检测领域具有潜在的应用。还将探索以熔盐为溶剂在高温下合成金属/硫和金属/硒化合物。特别令人感兴趣的是含有S-S或Se-Se键的化合物，这些键可以通过电化学或与碱金属的反应进行还原(和可逆)裂解。这种材料可用作高能量密度可充电电池的阴极。

This Presidential Young Investigator award from the Inorganic, Bioinorganic and Organometallic Chemistry Program will support the research of Dr. Mercouri Kanatzidis on the chemistry of sulfur and selenium compounds of heavy metals. One facet of the research program will focus on the chemistry of ruthenium/ sulfur compounds, with the aim of attaining new insights into heterogeneous catalytic processes such as the hydrodesulfurization of petroleum by ruthenium disulfide. The second facet of the research program involves research at the interface of inorganic chemistry and materials science. The techniques of synthetic inorganic chemistry will be used to produce precursors to new materials, such as low dimensional intermetallic alloys. Anionic soluble clusters containing late transition and main group metals bridged by either selenium or tellurium will be formed in solution and then precipitated with heavy metals such as cadmium to form new solid compounds. An example of a substance synthesized in this manner has the composition Cd:Hg:Te = 1:1:8, and has potential applications in the area of low energy detection. Also to be explored are syntheses of metal/sulfur and metal/selenium compounds at high temperatures with molten salts as solvents. Of particular interest are compounds containing S-S or Se-Se bonds which can be reductively (and reversibly) cleaved electrochemically or by reaction with alkali metals. Such materials may be useful as cathodes for high energy density rechargeable batteries.