Join us to hear from Ohio State University's Christine Thomas about her research!

Abstract: The formation and cleavage of chemical bonds in catalytic reactions relies on accessible two-electron redox processes that are often challenging for base metals such as first row and early transition metals. Metal-ligand and metal-metal cooperativity provide a potential solution to this challenge by enabling heterolytic bond cleavage processes and/or facilitating redox processes. Both strategies will be discussed, showcasing the many ways that metal-ligand and bimetallic cooperativity can operate and the methods by which cooperativity can be built into catalyst design. A tetradentate bis(amido)bis(phosphide) ligand has been coordinated to iron and it has been shown that the resulting complex can activate B-H and Si-H bonds across the two iron-amide bonds in the molecule without requiring a change in the formal metal oxidation state. In the context of metal-metal cooperativity, phosphinoamide-linked early/late heterobimetallic frameworks have been shown to support metal-metal multiple bonds and facilitate redox processes across a broad range of metal-metal combinations and the resulting complexes have been shown to activate small molecules and catalyze organic transformations. Lastly, ligands that remain “innocent” throughout a catalytic transformation can have a profound impact on the reactivity of the bound transition metal fragment: A tridentate pincer ligand featuring a strong π-acceptor has been shown to stabilized low spin electronic configurations with first transition metal centers, leading to catalytic applications in alkene hydrofunctionalization.