This award in the Inorganic, Bioinorganic and Organometallic Chemistry program funds research in the laboratory of Professor Brice Bosnich at the University of Chicago to study how dinuclear metal sites can release their individual electrons to effect a two-electron reduction of molecular oxygen to peroxide. Such reductions are essential in biology to activate oxygen to oxidize organic substrates. This work will contribute to a fundamental understanding of how the second metal ion can more easily release an electron to molecular oxygen following withdrawal of the first electron from the first metal ion to which the oxygen coordinates. Several binucleating ligands will be synthesized and dinuclear metal complexes prepared as systems for studying the sequential electron transfer process. Reactions with oxygen atom transfer reagents will also be studied. Complexes that are likely to undergo oxidative addition reactions in which the two electrons would derive from each member of the metal ion pair will also be prepared and investigated. Dinuclear transition metal ion complexes will be prepared in order to study electron-pair transfer to oxygen and other substrates. Some types of biological activation of oxygen proceed by this route to activate molecular oxygen to oxidize organic molecules. This research should lead to a better understanding of how electrons are derived from metal ion pairs and this understanding could assist in inventing new methods of activating oxygen to oxidize hydrocarbons in industrial feedstock processes.
