This award provides funds to permit Dr. Jay K. Kochi, Department of Chemistry, University of Houston, University Park, to pursue with Dr. Kyungbyung Yoon, Department of Chemistry, Sogang University, Seoul, Korea, for a period of 24 months, research on charge- transfer complexes in zeolite supercages. Zeolites, which are often used as catalysts, are crystalline aluminosilicates with small uniform microcrystalline cavities and pores. Internal catalytic sites are available only to molecules whose dimensions are less than pore size and only molecules which can leave through the pores can appear as final products. Thus, zeolites can serve as shape-selective catalysts. Shape selectivity will be examined by employing various reactivity probes specifically designed for a parallel study of the access to and mobility of substrates within the zeolite supercage. The PI and his Korean collaborator are ideally suited to combine their talents for mutual benefit. Dr. Yoon's laboratory is better able to carry out the difficult synthesis of doped zeolites which are essential to the proposed research and which otherwise would be unavailable to Dr. Kochi. Dr. Kochi's laboratory, on the other hand, has developed the laser- based spectroscopic instrumentation which is essential for making the measurements described in proposal. Drs. Kochi and Yoon are highly respected chemists who have collaborated successfully in the past and have published extensively in the field of this project. The present project will allow them to combine their talents and the resources of their respective laboratories in cooperative research on a problem of mutual interest and potential benefit to the United States and Korea. This project is relevant to the objectives of the U.S.-Korea Cooperative Science Program which seeks to increase the level of cooperation between U.S. and Korean scientists and engineers through the exchange of scientific information, ideas, skills, and techniques and through collaboration on problems of mutual interest and benefit. Dr. Yoon's participation in the project is supported by the Korea Science and Engineering Foundation (KOSEF).
