In this project supported by the Inorganic, Bioinorganic, and Organometallic Chemistry Program, Dr. Thomas Flood, Chemistry Department, University of Southern California, will undertake synthetic and mechanistic studies of reactions between hydrocarbons and transition metal complexes. The reaction types to be investigated are fundamental to all of organometallic chemistry and transition metal-based catalysis with the targeted systems providing well-defined examples in which carbon-hydrogen, carbon-carbon, and carbon-oxygen bonds are formed and/or cleaved. A variety of effects which may influence these reactions will be evaluated, with particular attention being paid to a comparison between amine and more conventional ligands. Mechanistic studies will be carried out using physical and spectroscopic methods. Carbon-hydrogen, carbon-carbon, and/or carbon-hydrogen bonds are broken and/or formed in countless chemical reactions, including those involved in many industrial processes. A large number of these reactions are facilitated by metal containing catalysts. Consequently, an understanding of how metals mediate such processes and how they interact with reacting species is of profound importance. This research will both improve our fundamental understanding of these important processes and provide the information needed to design more efficient metal catalysts.
