Nickel-catalyzed Hydrodefluorination

Submitted by Chip Nataro / Lafayette College on Wed, 08/24/2022 - 12:29
Description

This paper describes the use of a  catalytic nickel system for the hydrodefluorination of aryl amides. While organofluorine compounds are extremely useful because of their unique properties, there are growing concerns about the impact of these compounds on the environment. Carbon-fluorine bonds are extremely strong, and so getting them to react is a significant challenge for chemists.

Hydrogenative Depolymerization of Nylons

Submitted by Chip Nataro / Lafayette College on Tue, 08/23/2022 - 13:46
Description

This paper describes work from the Milstein group in which ruthenium catalysts with pincer ligands are used to depolymerize nylons by breaking the C-N bond and hydrogenating the resulting products to amines and alcohols. Waste plastic is a serious environmental concern that needs a solution. Organometallic chemists put significant effort into finding ways to convert monomers into polymers, and now we must figure out ways to do the reverse.

1FLO: Perhalogenated Carba-closo-dodecaborate Anions as Ligand Substituents: Applications in Gold Catalysis

Submitted by Megan Mohadjer Beromi / United States Naval Academy on Mon, 06/27/2022 - 19:58
Description

This 1FLO focuses on the fundamentals of catalysis and the interpretation of catalytic data. The questions guide students through the definition of catalysts, turnover frequency, turnover number, and require the students to extract information from a table of catalytic data. The data set comes from the unprecedented activity of carba-closo-dodecaborate ligated gold catalysts in hydroamination reported by Lavallo and coworkers in 2013 (Lavallo, V.; Wright II, J. H.; Tham, F. S.; Quinlivan, S. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2013, 52, 3172.

VIPEr Fellows 2022 Workshop Favorites

Submitted by Barbara Reisner / James Madison University on Sun, 06/26/2022 - 14:31

The second cohort of VIPEr fellows pulled together learning objects that they've used and liked or want to try the next time they teach their inorganic courses.

Metal/Ligand Proton Tautomerism Facilitates Dinuclear H2 Reductive Elimination (Kuo)

Submitted by Kyle Grice / DePaul University on Tue, 06/07/2022 - 11:11
Description

This LO was developed in 2022 as part of a collection celebrating the “Out in Inorganic Chemistry: A Celebration of LGBTQIAPN+ Inorganic Chemists” Inorganic Chemistry special issue. Check out the editorial and issue here: Editorial  Special Issue

The questions below refer to the following 2020 publication by Dr. Jonathan Kuo and Dr. Karen Goldberg

Substitution Chemistry in Odd-Electron Iron Group Carbonyl Complexes (D'Acchioli)

Submitted by Nancy Williams / Scripps College, Pitzer College, Claremont McKenna College on Sun, 05/29/2022 - 05:54
Description

This LO brings together organometallic chemistry, electrochemistry, and computational chemistry in a complete whole, and shows how these different expertises and techniques all can add to our understanding of a rich chemical system. It might be of particular interest in a class dominated by even-electron and diamagnetic chemistry to give students an understanding of how practitioners approach odd-electron, paramagnetic systems. 

Mechanistic Study of Competitive sp3-sp3 and sp2-sp3 Carbon-Carbon Reductive Elimination from a Platinum(IV) Center and the Isolation of a C-C Agostic Complex (Williams)

Submitted by Shirley Lin / United States Naval Academy on Fri, 05/20/2022 - 08:09
Description

This literature discussion focuses on a J. Am. Chem. Soc. communication that describes a series of Pt complexes that exhibit competitive reductive elimination reactions to form either an sp2-sp3 bond or an sp3-sp3 bond. One of the complexes also contains a C-C agostic interaction with the metal. The questions are written to be addressed by students in a foundation-level inorganic course.