Inner-Shell Structural Effects in Electron Transfer Reactions

Indiana University, Bloomington IN

Investigators

Abstract

Franklin Schutz of Indiana University Purdue University at Indianapolis is supported by the Inorganic, Bioinorganic and Organometallic Chemistry Program for research designed to understnd the consequences of inner coordination-shell structural changes on rates of electron-transfer reactions, through study of electrochemical activation parameters for reactions involving carefully-selected families of transition metal compounds. Aspects that will be of particular interest are: a) contributions of inner-shell rearrangements to the entropic component of the driving force of electron transfer; b) the influence of spin-changes on rates of electron transfer; c) multielectron transfer in ligand-bridged binuclear complexes as influenced by structure of the inner coordination spheres involved. The class of reactions that are being studied in this program is of critical importance in many types chemical reaction systems that are of high practical importance -- industrial catalysis, biological respiration, functioning of neural circuits, for instance. Although great progress has been made in the past several decades in understanding these processes, many fundamental questions remain unanswered, in part because of the difficulty of sorting out the many subtle chemical influences that bear on the rates of electron-transfer processes. In this program, highly sophisticated electrochemical and chemical techniques will be used to isolate and investigate several of the most pressing of these questions. Success in this effort may be expected to yield dividends in many scientific areas.