Reports: SE49673-SE: Advances in Metal-Mediated Bond Activation: From Unusual Bonding Motifs to Applications in Catalysis, at Pacifichem, December 15-20, 2010, Honolulu, HI

Kenneth G. Caulton , ACS Division of Inorganic Chemistry

This symposium was well attended, and hosted 56 speakers, as well as 37 poster presenters, spread over three days.  Presentations featured unusually redox-active ligands, including even the long known bipyridyl.  Other topics included bond making or breaking, during reactivity studies, on the ligand involved, as well as steric influences of the chosen ligands.  Computational studies were often used to complement experimental work.  Other speakers showed catalytic applications of their technology, including olefin polymerization, aromatic coupling, and transfer hydrogenation.  Still other speakers showed how a ligand can become active by oxidative addition of its CH bond to the metal, at least in transient species, but also sometimes in an isolated product.  One report featured a phosphorus analog of the 2,6 diiminopyridyl ligand that has been so widely used recently as a noninnocent ancillary:  the phosphorus analog shows some trends not predictable based on electronegativity; when attached to a first row transition metal, it is able to store electrons, hence giving unusually rich cyclic voltammetry behavior.  A banquet, held at the end of the symposium (funded by participant ticket costs), brought a great amount of communication which appeared to be the first step to development of some collaborations between previously unacquainted scientists; this is especially promising given the broad geographic representation of scientists at this symposium:  from Canada to Australia.  Our evening poster session was especially interactive, and involved 37 presentations, including some by those who had already given oral presentations, and also some by graduate students from a variety of Pacific rim nations.  In general, our symposium has a strong gender, age, and ethnic balance, and brought together researchers who often had never met one another.

As promised in our proposal, funding was given to include two outstanding foreign scientists in our symposium:  Prof. Allan J. Canty of the University of Tasmania, Australia and Prof. Tzi-Sum Hor of the National University of Singapore.

Converging on Alaska
Dr. Ridgway
Polyene Synthesis
Dr. O'Neil
Scattered
Light
Dr. Bali
Faults and Fluid Flow
Dr. Huntington