Symposium

My experience at the symposium was adequate I believe since the amount of people was not few and I was able to answer most questions with ease. However I feel that I could've done better if I spoke with more confidence and/or energy to draw listeners in, since the majority of people who came to my poster seemed bored when I came towards the middle of the explanation of my project. On a side note, I think that the symposium was a great milestone to overcome and to do so gave a good inner feeling. I also felt that others' projects were interesting, though I wasn't able to completely understand all of them.

Abstract

Catalyzation of Copper in TMC ATRA/ATRP

Trischler, Aaron; Oshin, Kayode; Pintauer, Tomislav

Department of Inorganic Chemistry

Duquesne University

The structure and mechanistic study of transition metal catalyzed atom transfer radical addition or polymerization (TMC ATRA/ATRP) reactions is a growing field of inorganic chemistry. They involve the formation of new carbon-carbon bonds through the addition of a saturated poly-halogenatyed hydrocarbon to an alkene, usually catalyzed by a transition metal complex. In this study, we set out to examine the structural, electrochemical, and kinetic behavior of eight unique copper complexes that have the predisposition to be used as catalysts in ATRA or ATRP reactions. Complexation reactions were carried out to generate the following; [Cu(I)(TREN-B)][Cl], [Cu(I)(TREN-4CB)][Cl], [Cu(I)(TREN-4MB)][Cl], [Cu(I)(TREN-4TFB)][Cl], [Cu(II)(TREN-B)][Cl2], [Cu(II)(TREN-4CB)][Cl2], [Cu(II)(TREN-4MB)][Cl2], and [Cu(II)(TREN-4TFB)][Cl2]. Characterizations were carried out used infrared, NMR, and mass spectroscopy. Solid state and electrochemical characterizations were carried out using x-ray crystallography and cyclic voltammetry respectively. Kinetic studies were conducted using UV/Vis spectrometry with carbon tetrachloride as the alkyl halide and (2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidin-1-yl)oxidanyl (TEMPO) as the radical trapping agent. This allowed for the kinetic isolation of the activation process in the ATRP reaction and helped us calculate the activation rate constants (kact) for the respective copper complexes.

Blog Challenge 1

My project this year is to create ligands. Later, the four ligands will be used as a base to create a complex, which is a ligand with a metal bound to the center of the molecule. The four ligands will be made from the precursors of Tris-(2-aminoethyl) amine in each and benzaldehyde in one, 4-chloro benzaldehyde in another, 4-methyl benzaldehyde in a third, and 4 (triflouromethyl) benzaldehyde in a fourth. These percursours will be made into ligands and each will bound to copper I and copper II. NMRs and IVs will be taken of each complex and they will be determined what the complex will be called and what it can be used for.

This Project SEED thing is starting off well. I already learned a lot of things that I would've never even came close to learning if I was at my regular school-and It's only the second day! So far if I were to grade this program, it would be a B+, but only because I lost most of my summer vacation for it, which isn't necessarily a bad thing since this early in vacation I would most likely be bored out of my mind! I bet that if I work hard enough, though, I will be able to teach my classmates back home, most of which love chemistry, so I'm looking forward to that, too.