The Organic Dynamics Program supports Professor Wesley G. Bentrude, of the Department of Chemistry at the University of Utah, for his studies of free radical and photochemical reactions of organophosphorus systems. Professor Bentrude is exploring the use of three-coordinate phosphorus molecules as traps for biradical intermediates and the selective diversion and functionalization of free radical intermediates through new uses of phosphoranyl radical chemistry. Fundamental aspects of the influence of electronic structure on the efficiencies of triplet-sensitized intramolecular photorearrangements of allyl phosphite triesters, cyclization and fragmentation reactions of radical cations of three-coordinate phosphorus molecules, and the radical pair vs. concerted nature of the photo-Arbuzov rearrangement are also under investigation. With the support of the Organic Dynamics Program, Professor Wesley G. Bentrude, of the Department of Chemistry at the University of Utah, studies the chemistry of phosphorus-containing molecules. Such compounds are found in a number of important settings, with practical applications as antioxidants, fuel additives, and antitumor and antiviral agents, and are also key intermediates in a number of biochemical transformations. Through the discovery of new reactions of phosphorus-containing molecules and elucidation of the pathways by which these reactions occur, Professor Bentrude contributes to our fundamental understanding of the chemistry of these important compounds.
