Coordination chemistry of p-block element Lewis acceptors: Applying principles of transition metal chemistry to non-metal elements

新化合物的合成和表征代表了发现新药物、用于生产商品化学品的新催化剂和具有新特性的新材料的基本基础，这些新材料在社会中具有潜在功能，包括新电解质、导电聚合物、阻燃剂、弹性体和生物医学材料。在我们的社会中使用的大多数工业上重要的催化剂涉及低丰度的贵金属（例如铂、铑），并且在社会中使用的大多数合成聚合物材料由碳基主链组成。相对丰富的p区元素（如硅、锗、锡、磷、锑、铋、硫和硒）的新合成化合物为催化剂提供了具有成本效益的替代品，并作为新聚合物材料的分子结构单元。此外，许多p-区元素的独特化学性质仍在开发中，提供了新的反应性和具有新物理性质的化合物/材料的发现。Burford NSERC发现补助金将支持开发具有p区元素的化合物的新合成方法。已证明对磷化合物有效的合成方法将外推到其他p区元素。拟议的研究提供了系统的应用程序的p-区元素的配位化学发现新的刘易斯酸物种，使应用程序的原则，是很好地建立了过渡金属元素。目标化合物将具有高分子正电荷，以在p-嵌段中心实现特殊的反应性，以发现用于激活键和小分子的新方法，实现元素-元素键形成的新方法，并开发扩展框架以最终用作低聚物和聚合物的构建块。该研究计划提供了一个系统的研究，评估各种氧化态和分子电荷的功能p区元素。这项研究计划正在改变，并将继续改变化学家理解p区元素化学的方式，以及社会如何更有效地利用具有成本效益的p区元素。拟议的研究项目将为本科生、研究生和博士后研究员提供合成化学、表征技术、固态结构、化学反应性和计算建模方面的优秀培训。此外，同事们能够开发世界一流的设备和仪器的丰富经验。这些广泛的经验很容易转移到各种职业道路上，并且前同事在学术界和工业界获得任命方面拥有出色的记录。**

The synthesis and characterization of new compounds represents a fundamental foundation in the discovery of new pharmaceuticals, new catalysts for the production of commodity chemicals, and new materials exhibiting new properties, with potential function in society including new electrolytes, conducting polymers, flame retardants, elastomers and biomedical materials. Most industrially important catalysts employed in our society involve low abundance precious metals (e.g. platinum, rhodium) and most synthetic polymeric materials employed in society are composed of carbon based backbones. New synthetic compounds of the relatively abundant p-block elements (such as silicon, germanium, tin, phosphorus, antimony, bismuth, sulfur and selenium) offer cost-effective alternatives for catalysts and as molecular building blocks for new polymeric materials. Moreover, the distinct chemistry of many of the p-block elements, still under development, offers the discovery of new reactivity and compounds/materials with new physical properties.****The Burford NSERC Discovery Grant will support the development of new synthetic methods for compounds featuring the p-block elements. Synthetic methods that have proven effectiveness for compounds of phosphorus will be extrapolated to the other the p-block elements. The proposed research offers the systematic application of coordination chemistry for the p-block elements to discover new Lewis acidic species, enabling the application of principles that are well established for the transition metal elements. The target compounds will have high molecular positive charges to effect exceptional reactivity at the p-block centers to discover new approaches for the activation of bonds and small molecules, to realise new approaches to element-element bond formation, and to develop extended frameworks to ultimately be used as building blocks for oligomers and polymers. The research program offers a systematic study that assesses the variety of oxidation states and molecular charges accessible for the featured p-block elements.****This research program is changing, and will continue to change the way in which chemists understand the chemistry of the p-block elements and how society can make more effective use of the cost effective p-block elements. The proposed research projects will offer*excellent training for undergraduate students, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in synthetic chemistry, characterization techniques, solid state structure, chemical reactivity and computational modeling. In addition, co-workers are able to develop extensive experience with world class equipment and instrumentation. These broad range of experiences are readily transferred to a variety of career paths and former co-workers have an excellent record of obtaining appointments in academia and industry. **