William D. Jones, the Charles F. Houghton Professor of Chemistry at Rochester University, will deliver a seminar entitled, "Why Do Weaker Metal-Carbon Bonds Lead to More Stable Complexes? What's Going On?" Hosted by Daniela Buccella and Tianning Diao.
For more information on William D. Jones, click here.
Abstract: Over the past 20 years substantial progress has been made in the understanding of the activation of C-H and other strong bonds by reactive metal complexes in low oxidation states. This talk will present an overview of the use of trispyrazolylborate rhodium complexes for the determination of thermodynamic factors that influence the activation of arene and alkane C-H bonds. Insights into bond strengths, kinetic and thermodynamic selectivities, and the nature of the intermediates involved will be examined. The influence of substituent effects on the thermodynamics of bond activations will also be analyzed.1 Trends in the effects of ligand donor strength on C-H activation will be examined.2,3 Recent work in acceptorless dehydrogenation reactions will also be presented using PNP iron complexes.4 A novel route for conversion of ethanol to butanol using tandem catalysis will also be presented.5
References:
1 “Rhodium-Carbon Bond Energies in Tp'Rh(CNneopentyl)(CH2X)H: Quantifying Stabilization Effects in M-C Bonds,” Yunzhe Jiao, Meagan E. Evans, James Morris, William W. Brennessel, and William D. Jones. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2013, 135, 6994–7004.
2 “Kinetic and Thermodynamic Selectivity of Intermolecular C-H Activation at [Tp′Rh(PMe3)]. How Does the Ancillary Ligand Affect the Metal-Carbon Bond Strength?” Yunzhe Jiao, James Morris, William W. Brennessel, and William D. Jones, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2013, 135, 16198–16212.
3 "Synthesis and energetics of Tp′Rh[P(OMe)3](R)H: A systematic investigation of ligand effects on C-H activation at rhodium,” Yunzhe Jiao, William W. Brennessel, and William D. Jones, Chem. Sci. 2014, 4, 804-812.
4 “Well-Defined Iron Catalysts for the Acceptorless Reversible Dehydrogenation-Hydrogenation of Alcohols and Ketones,” Sumit Chakraborty, Paraskevi O. Lagaditis, Moritz Förster, Elizabeth A. Bielinski, Nilay Hazari, Max C. Holthausen, William D. Jones and Sven Schneider, ACS Catal. 2014, 4, 3994-4003.
5 “Highly Selective Formation of n-Butanol from Ethanol through the Guerbet Process: A Tandem Catalytic Approach,” Sumit Chakraborty, Paige E. Piszel, Cassandra E. Hayes, R. Tom Baker, and William D. Jones, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2015, 137, 14264-14267.