With support from the Organic Dynamics Program Professor William M. Jones of the Univerisity of Florida will continue his work to examine the rearrangements of alkyl groups from metals to carbene centers. The rearrangment will be attempted with first and second row late transitions metals by using ligand strain energy to drive the reverse of the migratory insertion reaction of the carbene. The synthesis of stable carbynes will be attempted using the same strategy. In addition the transition metal complexes of strained allenes, their valence isomers, and tropynes will be synthesized and studied. %%% The fundamentally important migrations of molecular fragments from metals to carbon will be studied. These migrations are the key steps in numerous important processes including the Fischer-Tropsch reaction which converts carbon monooxide and hydrogen into hydrocarbons which could potentially be used as fuel. The practical limits of this reaction will be explored by examining the migrations of various groups to form novel and isolable organometallic compounds.
