This CAREER award by the Inorganic, Bioinorganic and Organometallic Chemistry program supports work by Professor Joseph P. Sadighi at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to develop metal catalysts capable of selectively inserting atoms or groups into arene carbon-hydrogen bonds, such as those in benzene. These complexes will contain very reactive bonding arrangements between oxygen or nitrogen and an electrophilic metal center, such as Cu(III), with a organofluorine pocket around the metal center that is immune to attack by the metal center while at the same time preventing metal centers from reacting with each other. The reactivity of the proposed copper, palladium and rhodium complexes will be controlled by the nature of the surrounding organic scaffolds.
The proposed research will give student researchers experience in organic synthesis, coordination chemistry, crystallography, spectroscopy and kinetics, and catalysis. An integrated, semester-long laboratory sequence involving the synthesis of ligands and complexes, characterizing them by spectroscopic methods, and monitoring and interpreting the rates of key reactions will be initiated to engage the students' interest and prepare them for their independent research.
Very reactive metal complexes, which are protected against self-destruction, will be prepared to insert new atoms or groups into organic compounds to provide economically useful products by efficient and environmentally compatible methods. Students involved in this project will learn to synthesize both organic molecules and metal complexes, and to analyze their reactions by instrumental methods.
