Synthetic, Structural and Mechanistic Studies of Main Group Element Complexes: Atom Transfer Reactions and Subvalent Compounds.

This award in the Inorganic, Bioinorganic and Organometallic Chemistry program supports research by Professor Gerard Parkin at Columbia University to obtain fundamental information concerned with the chemistry of the main group elements. Compounds of the main group elements have many important applications that range from their use as catalysts to their use as solid-state devices. Fundamental research into main group chemistry provides an important contribution by providing the knowledge that is essential to (i) develop further the existing applications of these elements and (ii) discover new applications. The principal objective of this research program is to elucidate the structures and reaction chemistry of the main group metals in their various coordination environments. In particular, the proposed research will focus on atom transfer reactions between main group metals and the use multidentate Lewis acid/Lewis base hybrid ligands. Atom transfer is an elementary class of reaction that has been little investigated in main group metal chemistry and the proposed studies will shed light on this intrinsically interesting transformation. Lewis acids are uncommon ligands, but the proposed research will incorporate this function into novel multidentate ligands that will be used to synthesize compounds providing sources of incipient subvalent metal centers. The research will be performed by undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral students who will receive broad training in learning to solve research problems by both studying the literature and by designing and conducting well-conceived experiments. In addition, the research group will also provide chemistry demonstrations for local secondary school students.