Viability of an Iron Complex for Reactivity

Interns

Ethan Estrada, Alan Lim, Maritza Vasquez, George Velasco

Project Description

The activation and functionalization of robust carbon-hydrogen (C-H) bonds in alkanes remains an active field of study due to its promise to yield valuable chemicals from relatively inexpensive sources. Ultimately, gaining a mechanistic understanding of this type of reactivity will have implications for better catalyst design as it pertains to the renewable production of common chemicals. Our approach to do this involved studying an iron-based system that has shown a similar type of reactivity.

To start, we systematically modified the compound in question using principles from both organic and organometallic chemistry. We then use spectroscopic (IR, EPR, NMR) and mass spectrometric (GC-MS, ESI) tools to shed light on the mechanism behind this transformation. Once we had a handle on how our metal complex operates, we attempted to expand the scope of its reactivity to show that this type of chemistry can be used in broad synthetic schemes. 

Project Files

 viability_of_an_iron_complex_for_reactivity_.pdf