This award in the Inorganic, Bioinorganic, and Organometallic Program supports the continued work of Dr. Clifford Kubiak of the Department of Chemistry, Purdue University, on the design and synthesis of new compounds which will activate and reduce carbon dioxide. In this project, Kubiak will study ways to form carbon-carbon bonds by coupling carbon dioxide molecules. Binuclear transition metal complexes will be tested as means to provide the electrons needed for the coupling reaction. Single-bonded Ir, Rh, Ni and Pt complexes will be prepared and photolyzed by laser transient absorbance techniques. The photoinduced cleavage of the metal-metal bond will provide two electrons for bond formation. The complexes are designed to form radical transients which are "tuned" for carbon dioxide reduction. The photogenerated radicals will be characterized using an infrared detector supported by this grant. The project is based on past findings that structural changes in certain binuclear compounds make them effective in photoinduced electron transfer reactions.
