With this renewal award, the Organic and Macromolecular Chemistry Program continues its support of the work of Professor Paul G. Wenthold of the Department of Chemistry at Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN. The research will extend the PI's work on the gas phase chemistry of organic ions and triradicals. Although radicals and diradicals have been well studied, triradicals with three electrons in three orbitals of comparable energy have received little attention. In these investigations, heats of formation of triradicals as well as bond dissociation energies leading to these energetic species will be measured. A second focus of the project is on the reactivity of ionic systems. A systematic study of the scope of a recently discovered electron-catalyzed cyclization reaction will be used to develop a predictive reactivity model. These studies will be extended to gas-phase addition and cycloaddition reactions of ions. Comparison of the gas-phase reactions with those in solution will be used to gain insight into the factors that affect the products and selectivity.
These studies are expected provide a wealth of thermodynamic and kinetic information that will impact upon chemistry, material science, and engineering.
