This literature discussion is in honor of the work of Shigeyoshi Inoue, winner of the 2026 Frederic Stanley Kipping Award in Silicon Chemistry for “groundbreaking contributions to the synthesis and reactivity of low-valent silicon compounds, and advancing the potential of silicon in metal-free catalysis and small-molecule activation” (https://cen.acs.org/a

This literature discussion comes from a paper in the Turkish Journal of Chemistry (1999, 23, 9-14) https://journals.tubitak.gov.tr/chem/vol23/iss1/2/. In this paper, the authors report spectroscopic data for nine compounds, [M(CO)₄(PP)] (M = Cr, Mo or W; PP = dppm, dppe, dppp). This is a very fundamental paper and as such, students are not expected to have had any significant coursework in inorganic chemistry.

This paper (J. Organomet. Chem. 2022, 965-966, 122317) describes the synthesis and reactivity of four-coordinate iridium compound with a tridentate ligand. This ligand is referred to in the paper as a pincer ligand which are a general class of tridentate ligands that coordinate in a mer- arrangement.

This is a really interesting paper in J. Am. Chem. Soc. (2025, 147, 34641-34646) involving a complex salt in which both the cation and anion are metallocenes. While a majority of the paper is focused on the characterization of two new compounds, it presents some excellent opportunities to practice counting electrons, one of which was a challenge to this author.

This literature discussion is in honor of Dr. Josh Figueroa, recipient of the 2026 F. Albert Cotton Award in Synthetic Inorganic Chemistry. Josh has done some tremendous work with isocyanide ligands and this paper is but a brief glimpse into this field. The complexes of interest contain carbonyl ligands and isocyanide ligands, so there are plenty of opportunities for students to use group theory to predict the number of IR-active vibrations for these ligands.

This literature discussion was inspired by a talk given by Dr. Nora Radu, recipient of the 2025 ACS Award for Distinguished Service in the Advancement of Inorganic Chemistry. It is a bit 'big picture' in nature in that the hydrocyanation reaction is important for the synthesis of nylon. As such, there is a significant amount of background material relating to nylon-6,6. Students will read an article from C&EN, portions of a patent, and portions of an article from J. Chem.