This award is the starter grant increment of Dr. Toreki's Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Chemistry. The research will deal with the synthesis of rigid polymeric solid-state organometallic and inorganic frameworks. Specifically, functionalized tetraarylsilanes will be reacted with various metal complexes to form three-dimensional polymeric networks containing alternating metal- and silicon-centered units. A specific example of such a polymer will be the product formed by the reaction of four equivalents of iron pentacarbonyl with a phosphine-substituted tetraarylsilane. Morphological control of cavity, pore and channel formation will be achieved by the selection of metal complexes and the nature of the linking functionalities. It is expected that these materials will afford efficient heterogeneous catalysts for processes such as hydrogenation and hydroformylation. %%% The inherent rational design of these supramolecular architectures permits the facile tailoring of their specific properties, pore dimensions and topologies and defines a fundamental new class of innovative materials.
