Dual Cooperative Catalysis by Group 4 Metals and Cr

In this project, funded by the Chemical Structure, Dynamics, & Mechanisms B Program of the National Science Foundation, the research team at Columbia University led by Professor Jack R. Norton will explore fundamental issues in organometallic chemistry and develop green catalysis for the synthesis of value-added chemicals. They will use inexpensive and abundant Group IV metals such as titanium, in combination with other transition metals, to cooperatively activate and transform dihydrogen gas—one of the cleanest and most economical chemical sources. This project involves a mixture of inorganic, organometallic, and organic chemistry, and therefore offers an interdisciplinary environment for training early career scientists. Students in the Norton research group are encouraged to interact with both academic and industrial scientists, to prepare themselves for careers in either professional sector.

The project will address four important issues in organometallic and organic chemistry: (1) it will develop more efficient bimetallic catalysts for the preparation of a class of primary alcohols (those with unbranched structures) that are of special importance; (2) it will explore the replacement of the cyclopentadienyl ligands in the Ti part of these catalysts with less expensive and more readily available alkoxy ligands; (3) it will try to apply these bimetallic catalysts in radical cyclizations for the construction of polycyclic scaffolds in natural products; (4) it will determine whether the proton cleavage of Group IV metal-carbon bonds in O– and N–containing complexes involves a proton relay mechanism. This project involves a mixture of inorganic, organometallic, and organic chemistry, and therefore offers an interdisciplinary environment for training early career scientists. The PI has an outstanding record of training early career scientists, and is engaged in standing up a web site that offers examples of kinetics problems the group has utilized through the years as a pedagogical tool for the community.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.