This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
With this award from the Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) program, Kristin Bowman-James and colleague Victor W. Day from the University of Kansas, Department of Chemistry will acquire a single crystal X-ray diffractometer with a high intensity copper source to support research in 1) anion and cation coordination chemistry, 2) azulene-based organometallic species as platforms for molecular charge transport systems, 3) studies of structural, electronic, and reactivity properties of peroxomanganese(III) complexes, 4) applications of organopalladium chemistry to new synthetic methodologies, 5) decarboxylative metalation and cross-coupling reactions and synthesis of chemical libraries via C-H functionalization, and 6) mechanism of heme capture by the hemophore secreted by pseudomonas aeruginosa.
The technique of single-crystal X-ray crystallography allows accurate and precise determination of the full three dimensional structure of a molecule, including bond distances and angles, and it provides accurate information about the spatial arrangement of molecules relative to the neighboring molecules. The high intensity X-ray source will facilitate the study of compounds that produce small crystals or those that diffract poorly. These studies will have an impact in a number of areas ranging from synthetic organic and inorganic chemistry to systems of biological interest and materials research. This instrument will be an integral part of teaching as well as research.
