In this project in the Physical Chemistry Program of the Chemistry Division, the spectroscopy, photochemistry, and dynamics of coordinatively unsaturated transition metal carbonyls will be studied. Such studies are important for both the fundamental information they provide about the synthesis of new inorganic compounds as well as the practical information about catalysis processes. %%% Transient infrared spectroscopy will be the principal experimental method used to obtain information about the reaction kinetics and mechanisms, bond energies, photochemistry, and photophysics of the unsaturated metal carbonyls. Real time information about a number of catalytic processes will be obtained and the important kinetic steps in their mechanisms will be elucidated. Experiments will explore the role of "ligand slippage" in substitution reactions of saturated species, and a newly implemented kinetic technique will be used to measure bond dissociation energies in order to understand trends.
