Describing the electronic structure of reactive copper(II) arylnitroso complexes

The efficiency of many chemical reactions is improved by addition of metal-based catalysts to the solution, however, the best of these catalysts are often based on some of the scarcest elements on the periodic table. The high costs of obtaining these elements makes catalysts based on ore Earth-abundant elements, but these base metals often do not stabilize the same charges as the rarer noble metals, making them unable to catalyze the same reactions. One strategy to enhance these metals’ reactivity is to modify their surrounding ligands so that they, too, can exchange electrons. These ligands are known as redox non-innocent. The arylnitroso function has three stable charges, making it a highly malleable redox non-innocent function, but this property also makes its complexes difficult to characterize. The goal of this project is to use quantum computation and spectroscopy to better understand this new class of arylnitroso complexes.

Faculty Supervisor:

Pierre Kennepohl

Student:

Partner:

Max-Planck-Institut für Chemische Energiekonversion

Discipline:

Physics

Sector:

Life Sciences (not health); Green/Alternative Energy; Pharmaceuticals; Quantum Science

University:

The University of British Columbia

Program: