This LO discuss various aspects of a reversible hydrogen activation by a metal-free phosphonium-borate compound.  Attentions are paid to the specific and usual reaction between highly steric phosphine and borane reactants to form a zwitterionic phosphonium borate product.  NMR spectroscopy, kinetics and thermodynamics of the hydrogen activation with the phosphonium borate product are also discussed.  The original work was published in Science by Douglas W. Stephan and co-workers.

This literature discussion involves various aspect of organometallic chemistry ranging from synthesis, reactions, symmetry, NMR and IR spectroscopy of organometallic compounds as well as catalysis.

Students are asked to read the article published in Angewandte Chime, and answer the questions from the worksheet. Students later discuss their answers with the entire class.

The O'Hare group has studied complexes of the permethylpentalene ligand, and recently reported the reaction of a zirconium complex of this ligand with CO₂ to form the carbamate. A series of three different complexes were prepared, each with slightly different products upon reaction with CO₂, illustrating subtle differences in reactivity based on either sterics or electronics. To further tangle the web, entropic and enthalpic considerations can also be considered. 

This literature discussion shows how serious inorganic chemistry topics can related to cultural heritage problems.  The paper is pretty dense in EPR and UV/Vis spectroscopy, but the questions don't go in super great depth on those topics instead focusing on the problem, the main findings, structures and the experiment design, with some additional questions about the spectroscopy.  

This study guide/question set will help a student navigate through the related research paper and test the student's understanding on the effects of hydrogen bonding in synthetic Cu-O2 adducts in the realm of bioinorganic model chemistry.