This was the 57th SLiThEr, presented by Dr. George Stanley, retired professor from LSU. It was a very interesting story and would be a valuable lesson to students about proper characterization and working with challenging and paramagnetic systems.
I regularly give an oral exam instead of a written exam in my junior and senior level organometallics seminar course. The course focuses on the primary literature, discussion of advanced topics, and asking questions. A written exam would not evaluate the students' abilities on the important skill development they learned in the class. Besides, I am better able to gauge when a student has no idea about a certain topic, or just needs a little nudge in order for them to demonstrate that they actually understand 95% of it.
The Tonks group has helped to revitalize interest in early metal, especially titanium, organometallic chemistry in recent years. Often his group uses Ti complexes for multi-component coupling, increasingly with masked low-valent Ti(II) as an important intermediate. This paper is more fundamental, exploring a ligand based on ortho-terphenoxide since the meta- and para- derivatives were already known. Along the way, they report some interesting NMR and structural information, and finish with some hydroamination catalysis.
Rigorous treatment of the chemistry of inorganic compounds, including structure, properties, and reactions, and their interpretation in terms of quantum chemistry, and solid state chemistry; analysis with modern instrumentation.
This course will explore many of the fundamental principles of inorganic chemistry, with significant emphasis on group theory, molecular orbital theory, angular overlap theory, coordination chemistry, organometallic chemistry, and bio-inorganic chemistry. Specific topics will vary, but will generally include coverage of atomic structure, simple bonding theory, donor-acceptor chemistry, the crystalline solid state, coordination compounds and isomerism, electronic and infrared spectroscopy applied to inorganic complexes, substitution mechanisms, and catalysis.
This Literature Discussion LO was created for the 2023 ACS Inorganic Chemistry Award Winners collection. Professor Shannon Stahl was the recipient of the 2023 Organometallic Chemistry Award. This LO is based on a recent paper from the Stahl group entitled "Can Donor Ligands Make Pd(OAc)2 a Stronger Oxidant? Access to Elusive Palladium(II) Reduction Potentials and Effects of Ancillary Ligands via Palladium(II)/Hydroquinone Reox Equilibria" published in J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2020, 142, 19678-19688.
This collection of learning objects was created to celebrate the National ACS Award Winners 2023 who are members of the Division of Inorganic Chemistry. The list of award winners is shown below.
In SLiThEr #39 Chip Nataro (Lafayette University) introduces us to the discussion LOs he uses in his senior-level inorganic course and the topics covered.
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.
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.