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Organometallics, the leading journal in the field of organometallic chemistry, has published an article coauthored by Brenna Ghent ’05, Lauren Sites ’08 (West Chester, Pa.), Chip Nataro, assistant professor of chemistry, and Arnold Rheingold, professor of chemistry at University of California, San Diego. Combining aspects of inorganic and organic chemistry, organometallic chemistry deals with compounds that contain bonds between carbon and a metal.
Much of the work presented in the article was completed by Ghent as part of her senior honors thesis. She presented her findings at the 229th American Chemical Society National Meeting in San Diego, a bi-annual conference attended by over 14,000 scientists from around the world. She was among six Lafayette students to share their research in the main program at the ACS meeting as opposed to the undergraduate section.
Graduating as a double major in chemistry and French, Ghent is now working for Mallinckrodt Baker in Phillipsburg, N.J., which manufactures and markets high-purity chemicals for the laboratory, biopharmaceutical, microelectronic, and industrial markets.
Nataro presented the completed project at the Organometallic Gordon Research Conference in July 2005, where he says it was very well received.
“Top organometallic chemists were not only impressed with the quality of the work and that it was performed by undergraduates, but also with how quickly we were able to perform this project,” he says.
The research is a study of two compounds referred to as BoPhoz, which Nataro obtained from a researcher at Eastman Chemical Co. Ghent began working on the project in fall 2004 in independent research.
“She had never done research before but was eager to learn,” says Nataro. “And she was also incredibly skilled at getting her results. It quickly became apparent that her independent study should be an honors thesis. She completed it in the spring of 2005. There were a few loose ends that Lauren quickly tied up, bringing the project to a close early in the summer of 2005.”
BoPhoz is of interest in the field of asymmetric catalysis, in which chemicals have a chiral center, a point in the molecule where there are two possible arrangements. In asymmetric catalysis, only one form of a molecule is produced even if it can exist in many forms. The process has significance in many different applications, particularly in pharmaceuticals, where it has been used to produce beneficial forms of chemicals without adverse side effects.
“The work we report presents findings that will be useful to anyone who wishes to use BoPhoz,” says Nataro. “We report the structures of two palladium complexes of BoPhoz. These are likely to be used as catalysts and the structures provide information about how the BoPhoz bonds to the palladium. We also studied the electrochemistry of BoPhoz and this gives insight into the stability of the compound. This information will be of great value to other chemists and will aid them in deciding if BoPhoz will be useful for a catalytic process they might be studying.”
As a national leader in undergraduate research, Lafayette sends one of the largest contingents to the National Conference on Undergraduate Research each year. Forty students have been accepted to present their research at this year’s conference.