Discovery of Organic and Organometallic Intermediates

Brown University, Providence RI

Investigators

Abstract

With this award, the Chemical Structure, Dynamics and Mechanism B program supports fundamental research of Professor Williard at Brown University. Professor Williard will develop a fast, accurate, sensitive and quantitative assessment of the molecular weight of chemical compounds in solution utilizing nuclear magnetic resonance measurements. This technique provides a rapid evaluation of chemical compounds and processes including rapid assessment of new electrolytes for lithium ion batteries (LIB), rapid monitoring of biodiesel fuel formation from used cooking oils, high throughput screening of new pharmaceuticals, and real time analysis of industrially important, bulk-scale chemical reactions such as polymerization and catalytic processes. It is applicable to small, medium and large molecules. Professor Williard in conjunction with the Leadership Alliance - a national organization based in Providence, RI that actively identifies, encourages and supports underrepresented minority student participation in research projects - with support from this grant and encouragement from the chairs of the chemistry departments at Brown University and at Claflin University in Orangeburg, SC will visit Claflin and teach a course on modern structure determination emphasizing the techniques developed in this project. Both faculty and students from Claflin will participate in exchange visits designed to foster increased collaboration between the largely minority student and faculty at Claflin with this research at Brown University. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), referred to as diffusion oriented spectroscopy or DOSY, will be enhanced and tuned for the characterization and discovery of new and existing alkali metal compounds, transition metal clusters, and alternative energy fuels derived from carbon dioxide. This specific technique utilizes pulsed gradient radio frequency (rf) fields to determine diffusion characteristics of analytes in solution. The methodology will be developed with the goal of improving the efficiency of the chemical reactions in which organic, organometallic and macromolecular compounds participate. An important aspect of the proposed project is that it will enhance diffusion-formula weight analysis (D-FW) with improvements in the sensitivity of pure shift NMR experiments. Single crystal x-ray diffraction analysis (XRD) will be performed in conjunction with the solution phase structure determination where applicable to corroborate and to complement NMR analyses.