9315999 Fu This award is the starter grant increment of Dr. Fu's Postdoctoral Research Fellowships in Chemistry award. The focus of the research deals with the use of indenyl-metal complexes to direct catalytic processes. Specifically, ring slippage of the metal-bound indenyl ligand will be exploited to open up coordination sites on metal systems to provide the necessary coordinatively-unsaturated reactive intermediates for catalysis. An important feature of this mechanism is enhanced stereocontrol of the reaction due to the high level of organization in the transition state. Initial studies will explore indenylrhodium complexes in catalytic olefin hydrogenation, hydroboration and hydroformylation. %%% This research on directed catalytic reactions will provide fundamental insights into reactivity as well as new methods for synthetic organic chemistry. ***
