CENTC News Blog

Alan Goldman Selected for Inaugural ACS Catalysis Lectureship

2012-01-19T12:35:00.000-08:00

Prof. Alan Goldman.
Photograph by Leo Goldman.

CENTC investigator Alan Goldman has been selected as the inaugural winner of the ACS Catalysis Lectureship for the Advancement of Catalytic Science. This new annual lectureship honors contributions of groundbreaking research that strengthens connections between catalysis subdisciplines and has a profound impact on catalysis as a whole. The award is co-sponsored by the American Chemical Society journal, ACS Catalysis, and the Division of Catalysis Science and Technology of ACS.

The inaugural ACS Catalysis Lectureship for the Advancement of Catalytic Science will be presented at the Fall 2012 ACS National Meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Division of Catalysis Science and Technology will organize a symposium at this meeting to honor Alan.

The Catalysis Lectureship will be awarded to Prof. Goldman in recognition of his work on the activation of hydrocarbons and other small molecules, and contributions to mechanistic understanding of oxidative addition and reductive elimination processes at late metal centers. In particular, Alan’s recent research on catalytic dehydrogenation and aromatization using Ir pincer catalysts has provided both novel catalytic methodologies for C-H activation as well as new insights into the elementary steps involved in such processes.

Alan Goldman is Professor of Chemistry at Rutgers University. Visit his group's website to learn more about their research.

Karen Goldberg Elected AAAS Fellow

2012-01-13T13:27:00.000-08:00

Prof. Karen Goldberg

CENTC Director Karen Goldberg has been elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The 2012 Fellows will be recognized for their contributions to science and technology at the Fellows Forum to be held on Feb 18, 2012 during the AAAS Annual Meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Karen Goldberg is Nicole A. Board endowed professor of Chemistry at the University of Washington. Her AAAS citation is for distinguished contributions to the field of organometallic chemistry, particularly for comprehensive studies of bond-making and bond-breaking reactions. Prof. Goldberg's election brings to 10 the number of AAAS Fellows in CENTC.

Read the full list of new AAAS Fellows here.

CENTC Undergraduate Summer Research Program Accepting Applications

2011-12-13T12:03:00.000-08:00

Get practical experience in Chemical Sciences this summer. CENTC invites college students with an interest in chemistry to apply for a unique summer research program as part of our NSF-funded, collaborative distributed center.

The online application is now available for the CENTC Undergraduate Summer Research Program. Undergraduate fellowships are available to conduct research at a choice of CENTC’s 14 locations during the summer of 2012. The program is 10 weeks long, running from June 11, 2012 through August 17, 2012. Fellows will receive a stipend and compensation for travel and housing. For more information and to complete an application, visit:
http://depts.washington.edu/centc/education_ur.htm

CENTC Sponsors Events at SACNAS National Conference

2011-11-10T10:25:00.000-08:00

In recognition of the International Year of Chemistry, CENTC sponsored two events at the 2011 National Conference of the Society for the Advancement of Chicano and Native American Scientists (SACNAS) in San Jose California, October 27-30, 2011. The symposium, “An Energy Future with Cleaner, Sustainable Fuels,” highlighted the role of chemistry research in the development of alternative energy sources and featured speakers Daniel Mindiola (Indiana University), Judith Gomez (Colorado School of Mines) and Alan Goldman (Rutgers University). Luis Martinez (Rollins College) chaired the session and also moderated a panel discussion “Research Careers in Academia and Beyond” with five early career chemists from industry, national laboratories and clinical research.

SACNAS is a society of scientists dedicated to advancing Hispanics/Chicanos and Native Americans in science. The 2011 National Conference attracted over 4,000 attendees. Seattle will be the site for the 2012 SACNAS National Conference. To learn more about SACNAS visit http://sacnas.org.

"Chemists - Catalysts for Change" opening at Pacific Science Center

2011-10-20T13:16:00.000-07:00

CENTC is pleased to announce the public opening of our new exhibit at Seattle’s Pacific Science Center on Sunday, October 23, 2011. The exhibit celebrates the International Year of Chemistry by highlighting current CENTC research and the importance of developing new catalytic processes to make the chemicals society depends on. “Chemists – Catalysts for Change” will occupy the science center’s newest exhibit space, the Portal to Current Research, from October 23, 2011 to February 11, 2012.

The Pacific Science Center opened during the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair, becoming the first U.S. museum founded as a science and technology center. The Science Center welcomes nearly one million children and adult visitors each year. To learn more about the Science Center visit http://www.pacsci.org/.

CENTC Research Highlighted on Cover of Angewandte Chemie International Edition

2011-09-26T06:33:00.000-07:00

A paper by CENTC investigator Melanie Sanford and coworkers is featured on the back cover of this week’s issue of Angewandte Chemie International Edition. The paper, “Remarkably High Reactivity of Pd(OAc)2/Pyridine Catalysts: Nondirected C-H Oxygenation of Arenes”, describes a new catalyst developed by the CENTC electrophilic oxidation team that shows excellent reactivity in the C-H oxygenation of simple aromatic substances. The Pd/pyridine ratio is critical to both reactivity and site selectivity.

The cover art was designed by Dr. Marion Emmert, now Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Read the paper on the journal website.

Melanie Sanford receives MacArthur "Genius" Award

2011-09-20T06:42:00.000-07:00

Photo courtesy the John D.
& Catherine T. MacArthur
Foundation.

CENTC investigator Melanie Sanford has been named a recipient of the 2011 John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, otherwise known as the Genius Award. The MacArthur Fellows Program awards unrestricted $500,000 fellowships to talented individuals who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction. The award cites Melanie's work “reviving and enhancing approaches to organic synthesis previously set aside because of their technical difficulty”.

Melanie is Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Chemistry at the University of Michigan. Read more about the MacArthur Fellows Program and the full citation of Melanie's award.

Thomas Lyons Awarded NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship

2011-09-16T13:38:00.000-07:00

CENTC postdoctoral researcher Dr. Thomas Lyons has been awarded an American Competiveness in Chemistry Fellowship (ACC-F) from the National Science Foundation. The ACC-F program seeks to build ties between academic, industrial, national laboratory, and NSF center researchers, and also involves beginning scientist in efforts to broaden participation in chemistry. Dr. Lyons received his B.S. in Chemistry from DePaul University in 2005 and earned his Ph.D. in 2010 from the University of Michigan working with Melanie Sanford. He is now a postdoctoral fellow at the University of North Carolina with Prof. Maurice Brookhart. This fellowship will support Tom's research on new transition metal-containing catalysts for transfer dehydrogenation of alkanes, which is carried out in collaboration with scientists at Eastman Chemical.

James Mayer Named American Chemical Society Fellow

2011-08-22T16:21:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to CENTC investigator James Mayer, who has been named a 2011 American Chemical Society Fellow. The fellows program began in 2009 as a way to recognize and honor ACS members from academe, industry, and government for outstanding achievements in and contributions to science, the profession, and ACS. Prof. Mayer, who will be honored at an induction ceremony on August 29, 2011 during the American Chemical Society National Meeting in Denver, joins CENTC investigators Wes Borden and Bill Jones, and advisory board members Chuck Casey and Anne Gaffney as recipients of this honor. Prof. Mayer is the Alvin L. and Verla R. Kwiram Endowed Professor of Chemistry at the University of Washington, Seattle. Learn more about the fellows program at the ACS website.

Professor James A. Dumesic is the recipient of the 2011 Boudart Award in Catalysis

2011-05-16T10:00:00.000-07:00

CENTC researcher Professor James A. Dumesic of the University of Wisconsin-Madison is the recipient of the 2011 Michel Boudart for Advances in Catalysis, sponsored by the Haldor Topsøe Company and administered jointly by the North American Catalysis Society and the European Federation of Catalysis Societies. The Award will be presented at the 22nd North American Meeting of the Catalysis Society (Detroit, June 2011) and at Europacat X (Glasgow, August 2011).

This Award recognizes and encourages individual contributions to the elucidation of the mechanism and active sites involved in catalytic phenomena and to the development of new methods or concepts that advance the understanding and the practice of heterogeneous catalysis. It is meant to recognize individuals who bring together the rigor and the international impact that exemplifies the accomplishments and the career of Professor Michel Boudart.

Professor Dumesic is being specifically recognized for his pioneering work on the transformation of biomass-derived molecules to chemicals and fuels.

To read more about the award, visit http://www.nacatsoc.org/news.asp?NewsID=174.

CENTC, Pacific Science Center to Develop Exhibit for International Year of Chemistry

2011-04-19T16:13:00.000-07:00

CENTC is pleased to announce that we have received funding from the National Science Foundation to collaborate with the Pacific Science Center in Seattle and create an exhibit for the International Year of Chemistry. This project builds upon the Science Center’s NSF-funded “Portal to the Public” initiative that engages scientists in direct contact with museum visitors of all ages. Pacific Science Center staff and CENTC researchers will work together to develop content for hands-on activities highlighting current CENTC research and the need for development of new catalytic chemical processes to meet the needs of society. The exhibit is scheduled to launch on Mole Day, October 23, 2011.

The Pacific Science Center opened during the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair, becoming the first U.S. museum founded as a science and technology center. The Science Center welcomes nearly one million children and adult visitors each year. To learn more about the Science Center visit http://www.pacsci.org/.

Susannah Scott Highlighted for International Women's Day at Dalton Transactions

2011-03-08T14:03:00.000-08:00

Below, find the press release from Dalton Transactions:

As the 8th March is International Women’s Day Dalton Transactions is highlighting the first published advanced article of the day by a female corresponding author.

Congratulations to Susannah L. Scott, who investigates how pincer-ligated iridium complexes with a phosphinite substituent can be immobilised onto a support to form an effective catalyst for the dehydrogenation of alkanes.

Read the full article to find out more…

Reactions of phosphinites with oxide surfaces: a new method for anchoring organic and organometallic complexes
Brian C. Vicente, Zheng Huang, Maurice Brookhart, Alan S. Goldman and Susannah L. Scott, Dalton Trans., 2011, Advance Article, DOI: 10.1039/C0DT01369B, Paper

For more information on Professor Scott’s work visit her webpage.

Other recent articles by Susannah Scott can be found below:

Catalytic disassembly of an organosolv ligninviahydrogen transfer from supercritical methanol
Katalin Barta, Theodore D. Matson, Makayla L. Fettig, Susannah L. Scott, Alexei V. Iretskii and Peter C. Ford, Green Chem., 2010, 12, 1640-1647

Wavelet transform EXAFS analysis of mono- and dimolybdate model compounds and a Mo/HZSM-5 dehydroaromatization catalyst
Robert O. Savinelli and Susannah L. Scott, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2010, 12, 5660-5667

Electronic structure of alumina-supported monometallic Pt and bimetallic PtSn catalysts under hydrogen and carbon monoxide environment
Jagdeep Singh, Ryan C. Nelson, Brian C. Vicente, Susannah L. Scott and Jeroen A. van Bokhoven, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2010, 12, 5668-5677

Highly dispersed clay–polyolefin nanocomposites free of compatibilizers, via the in situ polymerization of α-olefins by clay-supported catalysts
Susannah L. Scott, Brian C. Peoples, Cathleen Yung, René S. Rojas, Vikram Khanna, Hironari Sano, Toru Suzuki and Fumihiko Shimizu, Chem. Commun., 2008, 4186-4188

Catalytic ring expansion, contraction, and metathesis-polymerization of cycloalkanes
Ritu Ahuja, Sabuj Kundu, Alan S. Goldman, Maurice Brookhart, Brian C. Vicente and Susannah L. Scott, Chem. Commun., 2008, 253-255

CENTC Welcomes New Advisory Board Members

2011-03-08T13:49:00.000-08:00

We are pleased to announce the appointment of five new members to the CENTC Advisory Board. John Briggs, Scientist at Dow Chemical; Richard Cherpeck, Consulting Scientist at Chevron Oronite; Anne Gaffney, Principal Consultant and CTO at AMG Chemistry and Catalysis Consulting and the Langmuir Research Institute; Shane Krska, Senior Investigator at Merck Process Research; and Jeff Scheibel, Principal Scientist at Procter and Gamble have all accepted invitations to three-year terms. They join current CENTC Advisory Board members Emilio Bunel, Director of Chemical Sciences and Engineering at Argonne National Laboratory; Charles Casey, Emeritus Professor of Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin - Madison; and Jennifer Holmgren, Chief Executive Officer of LanzaTech.

CENTC Undergraduate Summer Research Program Accepting Applications

2011-01-24T11:28:00.000-08:00

Applications are now available for the CENTC Undergraduate Summer Research Program. Undergraduate fellowships are available to conduct research at a choice of CENTC’s 12 locations during the summer of 2011. The program is 10 weeks long, running from June 13, 2011 through August 19, 2011. Fellows will receive a stipend and compensation for travel and housing. For more information and to download an application, visit:
http://depts.washington.edu/centc/education_ur.htm

Melanie Sanford named AAAS Fellow

2011-01-18T14:20:00.000-08:00

CENTC researcher, Professor Melanie Sanford, has been elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). AAAS recognizes Fellows for their contributions to science and technology. Prof. Sanford is honored for distinguished contributions to the fields of organic, organometallic, and inorganic chemistry, particularly the development and mechanistic study of new transition metal catalyzed reactions.

Read the full list of elected AAAS Fellows.

For more information about Melanie Sanford and her research, please visit her faculty page and research group website.

A novel route to key aromatics

2011-01-10T10:35:00.000-08:00

CENTC researchers have found a new way to create aromatic compounds from straight chains of hydrocarbons by using an iridium-based catalyst. The reaction takes place at much lower temperatures than the conventional way of producing aromatic molecules from hydrocarbon chains and with a much higher degree of control over the end products, some of which are difficult or impossible to obtain by standard routes.

Aromatics are key building block molecules for the chemical industry. They are currently produced mainly by a process of catalytic reforming of petroleum feedstocks, which is carried out at temperatures of around 500°C, and produces a complex mixture of molecules that need to be subsequently separated.

Now a team led by Alan Goldman of Rutgers University and Maurice Brookhart of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has shown that it is possible to produce aromatic molecules from their straight-chain counterparts, n-alkanes, at temperatures several hundred degrees lower than other methods.

Pincer-ligated iridium complex
(Photo: Nature Chem.)

The key to the process is a pincer-ligated iridium complex that acts as a homogeneous catalyst. Here, iridium is clamped by three arms contained within a phosphine-based cage. 'This makes it very stable, allowing it to be heated to the temperatures we need, close to 200°C,' says Brookhart.

When an alkane is introduced to the catalyst, the iridium inserts itself between a C-H bond and pries the hydrogen away, presenting it to a hydrogen acceptor - in this case t-butylethylene. This results in the generation of a double bond within the carbon chain. The process is repeated twice more, creating a triene, which then undergoes cyclisation followed by loss of an additional equivalent of hydrogen to produce the aromatic product.

Different aromatics are produced depending on the number of carbons in the starting alkane. Many of the subsequent products are difficult or impossible to produce by other means says Goldman. 'For example if you start with decane, you end up with linear alkyl aromatics that are normally impossible to obtain with conventional routes, which combine olefins and lighter aromatics. Alternatively, if you tried to make these products from alkanes using current heterogenous routes you would get extensive bond breaking of the carbon chains, whereas we get mostly compounds with the same carbon number as our starting material.'

R. Ahuja et al, Nature Chem., 2010, DOI: 10.1038/nchem.946

Elon Ison Wins NSF Career Award

2010-08-26T21:01:00.000-07:00

CENTC investigator Dr. Elon Ison, assistant professor of chemistry at North Carolina State University, received an Early Career Development Award from the National Science Foundation. The award is one of NSF’s highest honors for early-career science and engineering faculty.

Ison’s five-year, $530,000 grant will fund research related to his proposal, titled Rational Design of Green Catalysts for Chemical Oxidations. His goal is to develop chemical methods that reduce waste and environmentally hazardous materials and could potentially lead to more efficient use of chemical and natural resources, such as oil, coal, natural gas and biomass, to generate energy.

CENTC researchers find gases react inside single crystals

2010-06-03T20:28:00.000-07:00

A newly synthesized family of molecular single crystals has two remarkable capabilities, reported in this week's Nature by CENTC researchers Prof. Maurice Brookhart (Univ. Of North Carolina) and graduate student Zheng Huang (now a post-doctoral fellow at Univ. Of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign). Members of the molecular family can exchange small gaseous ligands for others, while retaining their integrity as single crystals; and some of the family members can act as selective catalysts for the hydrogenation of ethylene gas.
Maurice Brookhart and colleagues synthesized an organometallic compound, [Ir]-N₂, in which a reactive iridium atom, supported by an organic 'pincer' ligand, binds a nitrogen molecule. Crystallizing this compound from a toluene solution yields single crystals, in which the [Ir]-N₂ molecules are stacked around channels containing toluene molecules.

Exposing the [Ir]-N₂ crystals to other small-molecule gases, such as carbon monoxide, ammonia or ethylene, results in solid-state transformations to analogous compounds in which each of these gases replaces nitrogen. The authors show that these transformations take place by direct exchange reactions inside the intact crystals, rather than by ligand loss followed by uptake. The gaseous ligands evidently enter the crystals via the toluene-containing channels, which exclude entry by all but the smallest molecules.

Three of the compounds also function as hydrogenation catalysts for ethylene and propylene, with a strong selectivity for the smaller gas when reactions are prevented from occurring at or near the crystal surfaces. This appears to be the first demonstration of a selective catalytic reaction occurring inside an organometallic crystal.

Read the full article: Huang, Z.; White, P. S.; Brookhart, M. “Ligand Exchanges and Selective Catalytic Hydrogenation in Molecular Single Crystals”, Nature, 2010, 465, 598-601.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature09085

2010 CENTC Summer School Accepting Applications

2010-03-16T12:38:00.000-07:00

CENTC is sponsoring a summer school to be held July 19-22, 2010 at the University of Washington in Seattle. The four-day in-residence summer school program will emphasize purposes, techniques, challenges and career opportunities in catalysis as the 21st century progresses. Advanced Ph.D. students, post-doctoral fellows, early-career researchers and faculty members from primarily undergraduate institutions who are interested in deepening their understanding of organometallic catalysis are encouraged to apply.

To learn more, visit the Summer School website.

Diverse Backgrounds, Common Goals Social at ACS National Meeting

2010-03-08T10:05:00.000-08:00

CENTC, Procter & Gamble, Dow and UOP are co-hosting the second Diverse Backgrounds, Common Goals event at the National ACS meeting in San Francisco on Monday, March 22, 2010 from 5:30 - 7:30 pm. This open social event is being organized by CENTC and American Competitiveness in Chemistry postdoctoral fellow, Dr. Takiya Ahmed, with the goals of fostering integration and partnerships among national science organizations interested in diversity and between those organizations and industry, and to provide networking opportunities for undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral students.

Stop by the Moscone Convention Center room 2011 any time between 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm on Monday, March 23rd for complimentary refreshments and lots of mingling.

CENTC congratulates recent graduates

2010-01-27T20:13:00.000-08:00

The Center for Enabling New Technologies through Catalysis extends congratulations to two recent graduates:

Chris Waidmann was a graduate student with Prof. James Mayer at the University of Washington. Chris’ dissertation title is "Investigating Proton Coupled Electron Transfers in Oxovanadium and Dimeric Copper-Oxo Systems: The Importance of Intrinsic Barriers and Reaction Driving Force".

Sabuj Kundu, a graduate student at Rutgers University with Prof. Alan Goldman, wrote his thesis on “Reactions of (PCP)Ir Complexes With Small Molecules”.

Congratulations CENTC graduates!

Three CENTC investigators elected as AAAS Fellows

2010-01-04T09:02:00.000-08:00

CENTC investigators R. Thomas Baker (Univ. of Ottawa), William Jones (Univ. of Rochester) and Huimin Zhao (Univ. of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign) have been elected as Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. AAAS recognizes Fellows for their contributions to science and technology.

Read the press release and full list of elected Fellows.

New AAAS Fellows Baker, Jones and Zhao

New insight into the conversion of methane to ethane by palladium-based catalysts

2009-12-16T14:16:00.000-08:00

As part of CENTC's continuing attempts to develop catalytic processes to utilize methane gas as a potential source of fuel and other chemicals, CENTC investigators James Mayer (University of Washington) and Melanie Sanford (University of Michigan) have reported a better understanding of the way certain palladium-based catalysts release methane to form ethane. The studies, conducted collaboratively by the Mayer and Sanford research groups, were reported as a Communication in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS) on October 13, 2009.

Sanford and Mayer investigated the ferrocenium-induced elimination of palladium-bound CH₃ to give ethane in order to determine which of three possible pathways was a likely route for the reaction to take. A series of experiments were carried out that suggested the reaction did not involve methyl radicals and did involve a Pd(IV) intermediate. Further reactions were carried out at low temperature (-80° C) and the Pd(IV) intermediate was observed by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. Additional experiments with other oxidants suggested that Ag⁺ follows a similar mechanism but benzoquinone behaves differently.

The studies conducted by Mayer and Sanford are part of an ongoing project by CENTC researchers to develop catalysts for the direct oxidative dimerization or oligomerization of methane. The overall goal of this project is to address the need to form higher alkanes from methane via processes that do not involve energy-intensive cracking or steam reforming to syngas.

"Oxidatively Induced Reductive Elimination from (^tBu₂bpy)Pd(Me)₂: Palladium(IV) Intermediates in a One-Electron Oxidation Reaction" Michael P. Lanci, Matthew S. Remy, Werner Kaminsky, James M. Mayer and Melanie S. Sanford, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2009, 131 (43), pp 15618-15620

[DOI: 10.1021/ja905816q]

Read the JACS Communication

Melanie Sanford Named Esquire Magazine's Chemist of the Year

2009-12-14T09:58:00.000-08:00

CENTC investigator Melanie Sanford has been named Chemist of the Year in the December 2009 issue of Esquire Magazine. The article (pg. 163) touts Prof. Sanford as "a one-woman special-ops unit called in by chemical and drug companies to break down and put together molecules at her whim." Esquire goes on to describe her National Science Foundation-funded efforts "to convert methane - an abundant natural gas that's usefulness is limited because it's difficult to transport - into a petroleum-like fuel. If she succeeds, she will effectively double the world's fuel supply for pennies."

Alan Goldman and New Rutgers "Signature" Energy Course Benefit from CENTC Outreach Experience

2009-11-30T16:12:00.000-08:00

CENTC investigator Alan Goldman (Rutgers University) recently co-created a new "signature" course designed to introduce science to non-science majors at Rutgers. The course is focused on Energy and Climate and is co-taught by four Rutgers professors from the Departments of Marine, Earth, and Planetary Sciences, Chemistry, Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Physics. The course was reported on by the New Jersey newspaper The Star-Ledger: http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/11/rutgers_university_introduces.html

Alan Goldman's participation in the development of the course is largely an outgrowth of his participation in CENTC's outreach program to high schools (http://depts.washington.edu/centc/education_hsvisits.htm) as well as attempts as a CENTC PI to be more engaged in outreach.

Related links:

Rutgers University Announcement - http://sas.rutgers.edu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=845&Itemid=228
Prof. Goldman’s website - http://rutchem.rutgers.edu/?q=node/623

CENTC Undergraduate Summer Research Program Accepting Applications

2009-11-16T22:00:00.000-08:00

Applications are now available for the CENTC Undergraduate Summer Research Program. Undergraduate fellowships are available to conduct research at a choice of CENTC’s 13 locations during the summer of 2010. The program is 10 weeks long, running from June 14, 2010 through August 20, 2010. Fellows will receive a stipend and compensation for travel and housing. For more information and to download an application, visit:

http://depts.washington.edu/centc/education_ur.htm

Melanie Sanford Receives BASF Catalysis Award 2009

2009-11-12T21:59:00.000-08:00

CENTC investigator Melanie Sanford was recently awarded the BASF Catalysis Award 2009 for her research seeking new catalytic reactions for cleaner systems and greener processes in chemistry. Read the BASF press release here:

http://www.basf.com/group/pressrelease/P-09-442

Karen Goldberg Interviewed by EarthSky

2009-11-05T14:10:00.000-08:00

CENTC Director Karen Goldberg was interviewed by EarthSky recently on the topic of converting methane to methanol. You can listen here or read the transcript at EarthSky:

90 Second Interview
8 Minute Interview

http://www.earthsky.org/interviewpost/energy/karen-goldberg-trying-to-make-natural-gas-more-accessible-fuel-option

Related links:
CENTC Researchers Characterize Methane-Metal Complex

CENTC Researchers Characterize Methane-Metal Complex

2009-10-26T11:36:00.000-07:00

CENTC researchers at the University of North Carolina and the University of Washington have described the first observation of a metal complex that binds methane in solution. The finding is reported in the October 23 issue of Science. The binding of methane to a metal complex is a key first step in the selective breaking of the C-H bond in methane. While the breaking of all four C-H bonds in methane is quite easy to do (think burning natural gas to heat your stove or house), breaking just one bond has proven to be quite difficult. A few metal catalysts are known to carry out this bond activation, but they have proved to be too slow, too inefficient or too expensive for widespread industrial use. The research reported in Science gives new insight into this bond activation process. This information should be useful in the quest to formulate other catalysts that may one day lead to the easy conversion of methane into other useful chemical feedstocks and fuels. The research is directly related to CENTC’s goal to utilize methane stranded in remote areas.

The Science report describes a σ-methane complex that is shown to be quite stable in solution. This report is the first observation and full characterization of a relatively long-lived σ-methane complex in solution. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectra of the complex were obtained by protonation of a rhodium-methyl precursor at -110 °C. The complex is observed to rapidly tumble in the coordination sphere of rhodium, exchanging free and bound hydrogens. Density functional theory calculations indicate that the complex is best described as η²-C,H methane coordination to the metal.

Geometry optimized structure of 2-CH₄+ at the PBE0/BS2 level.

The authors of the report are Wesley Bernskoetter, who participated in this project as a post-doctoral fellow with Maurice Brookhart at the University of North Carolina (he is now an Assistant Professor at Brown University),Cynthia Schauer, an Associate Professor at UNC, Karen Goldberg, a Professor at UW and Director of CENTC, and Maurice Brookhart, a Professor at UNC and a CENTC Principal Investigator.

Bernskoetter, Wesley H.; Schauer, Cynthia K.; Goldberg, Karen I.; Brookhart, Maurice “Characterization of a Rhodium(I) σ-Methane Complex in Solution” Science, 326 (5952), 2009, 553-556
DOI: 10.1126/science.1177485

Related links:

Read the Science paper
UNC press release
UW press release
RSC: Chemistry World Article

2009 CENTC Annual Meeting

2009-10-12T20:16:00.000-07:00

The CENTC Annual Meeting took place in Seattle on September 14-15, 2009. It was attended by 68 attendees, including CENTC faculty collaborators, post-doctoral fellows, graduate students, undergraduates, staff, a NSF representative and Industrial Affiliates. Participants attended presentations and poster sessions on CENTC research and education and outreach efforts. CENTC researchers utilized the time to plan future research efforts, as well.