Dr. Seth N. Brown, Department of Chemistry, University of Notre Dame, is supported by a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award from the Inorganic, Bioinorganic and Organometallic Chemistry Program. Trimetallic complexes with coordinatively unsaturated titanium centers, each capable of acing as a one-electron reductant, will be synthesized using a variety of targeted ligands, possessing amine or hydroxyl moieties, as templates. The ability of tri-titanium clusters to abstract atoms from small molecules, forming capped-clusters, via reductive cleavage will be examined. Additionally, an undergraduate experimental laboratory course will be designed and introduced into the curriculum as a vehicle to teach students about model-building. The goal of the course is to develop good experimental design skills in undergraduates. The reduction of oxygen or nitrogen is a key step in the use of these titanium-containing molecules by biological systems or in industrial processes. The proposed studies will provide additional insight into topics ranging from the biological production of ammonia to surface catalyzed reactions. The education component of this project will examine new approaches in undergraduate chemistry education.
