"Frustrated Lewis Pairs”: Metal-Free Activation of Hydrogen and Small Molecules"
Presented by
Prof. Douglas W. Stephan
Department of
Chemistry, 80 St George St. University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M5S3H6
dstephan@chem.utoronto.ca
The activation of hydrogen has been the purvue of transition metals for 200 years. In recent work we have discovered the first metal-free system capable of H2 activation. Sterically encumbered Lewis acid and base combinations do not form “classical” Lewis acid-base adducts. Rather, the unquenched Lewis acidity and basicity of such sterically “frustrated Lewis pairs (FLPs)” is available for reactivity. Such systems have been shown to effect the heterolytic cleavage of hydrogen and applied to develop metal free hydrogenation catalysts. FLPs are also shown to exhibit unprecedented reactivity with a variety of other small molecules, including olefins, dienes, alkynes, cyclopropanes, CO2 and N2O. The implications of the discovery of such systems and further details will be presented in this lecture.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Meet the Speaker at 1:00pm in The Miller Seminar Room, 328 Havemeyer
