The focus of this project in the Organic Chemical Dynamics Program is the chemistry of organosulfur compounds. This family of compounds includes a number of substances of vital importance in biological systems, important starting materials and intermediates in synthetic organic chemistry, and several compounds which play important roles in environmental chemistry. The project will emphasize reaction intermediates and unstable species which are involved in the synthesis and reaction mechanisms of selected organic compounds of sulfur and other chalcogens. One phase of the project will be the study of the chemistry of imidazole-2-chalcogenones (-2-thiones; -2-selenones; -2-tellurones). This will include a kinetic and mechanistic study of charge transfer complex formation with halogens and cyanogen halides, the preparation and chemistry of imidazolyl sulfines, selenines and tellurines. In another aspect of the project, the oxidation of disulfides, trisulfides, thioozonides, sulfenic acids, and sulfinic acids will be investigated. The mechanisms and products from the reactions of sulfinyl halides with light, heat, amides, sulfenic acids, and sulfines will be studied. Molecular orbital calculations will be performed for many of the reaction intermediates and products.
