In this project in the Inorganic, Bioinorganic and Organometallic Chemistry Program the chemistry of two high-energy molecules, carbon suboxide and nitrous oxide, will be investigated. Carbon suboxide will be used as a unique source of the small carbon-rich molecules which are believed to serve as building blocks for non-petrochemically derived carbon compounds in the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis. Carbon suboxide will be used as a source of oxygen in the selective oxidation of organic compounds under mild conditions. Carbon suboxide will be used as a source of carbon fragments for the formation of metal complexes of such species as carbide, ketenylidene and ketene. Suitable metal systems will be sought for the activation of nitrous oxide toward oxygen transfer reactions to organic moieties in both stoichiometric and catalytic fashions. Nitrous oxide will be used also as a reagent for preparing interesting oxo-complexes under mild, kinetically controlled conditions. Such reactions are expected to be very clean, since the only by-product of nitrous oxide decomposition is dinitrogen.
