"Radical Frontiers in Catalysis"
Theodore Betley Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology Harvard University
Location
006 Steele
Sponsored by
Chemistry Department
Audience
Public
Within metal-catalyzed reactions, the development of electronic structure to function relationships is critical for understanding the factors that promote desirable reactivity. Electronic structure considerations dictate the stability and/or reactivity of both mononuclear and polynuclear complexes. At an extreme, maximally high-spin complexes represent attractive target complexes, allowing for one to build in instability to the coordination complex, thus achieving maximal reactivity. Towards this end we have developed weak-field ligand platforms to enable (1) base-metal reagents to catalyze C-H bond functionalization, and (2) unveil small-molecule activation at polynuclear reaction sites
Location
006 Steele
Sponsored by
Chemistry Department
Audience
Public