This project addresses the fundamental chemistry of unusual heavy-metal congeners of carbon compounds. Metallole dianions - five-membered ring compounds containing silicon, germanium or tin atoms - bear two negative charges which are delocalized over the rings. Reactions of these unique dianions are expected to give rise to a wide range of novel compounds containing metal-to-carbon double bonds, as well as to a remarkable series of stable diradicals, containing two unpaired electrons. The synthesis and chemistry of stable silylenes - compounds of silicon in the unusual oxidation state of 2 rather than the customary 4 - will also be explored. The process by which some stable silylenes serve as catalysts for the polymerization of unsaturated organic compounds will be investigated.
With this award, the Organic and Macromolecular Chemistry Program is supporting the research of Professor Robert West, of the Department of Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. Although our understanding of the chemistry of compounds containing carbon has become quite sophisticated, the chemistry of carbon's closely related relatives, silicon and germanium, is comparatively undeveloped. Professor West is studying the synthesis and reaction chemistry of a series of compounds in which one or more carbon atoms are replaced by silicon, germanium or tin. These studies are of fundamental importance in developing our understanding of the chemistry of the other elements in the periodic table. In addition, the unusual structures of Professor West's target compounds promise potential advances in practical reaction chemistry, including polymerization reactions.
