02/10/2014

Research on cover of Journal of the American Chemical Society

Recent research from the research group of Professor

The work of researchers in the groups of professors Laura Gagliardi and Connie Lu is featured on the February 5 cover of the Journal of the American Chemical Society, http://pubs.acs.org/action/showLargeCover?jcode=jacsat&vol=136&issue=5.

This work is a collaboration between the groups of Professor Connie Lu, Professor Laura Gagliardi, and Eckhard Bill, Ph.D., from the Max Planck for Chemical Energy Conversion. Graduate student Steve Tereniak designed and executed the syntheses. Graduate student Becky Carlson performed the theoretical calculations with assistance from Rémi Maurice, Ph.D., and Hyun Jung Kim. The anomalous X-ray scattering experiments were performed by Laura Clouston from the Lu group, Vic Young Jr., Ph.D., and Yu-Sheng Chen, Ph.D., from ChemMatCARS.

Researchers report a five-membered family of homo- and heterobimetallic complexes using the first-row transition ions: Mn(II), Fe(II), and Co(II). The bimetallic complexes all showed a high degree of selectivity in the metal-binding sites, despite the fact that these metal ions have similar covalent radii and readily undergo ligand exchange reactions. This study established magnetic and bonding properties for specific metal-metal pairings, which holds promise for achieving predictable and precise control of cluster properties through metal atom substitution.

The paper can be viewed at http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ja409016w.

Pictured, from left, are Becky Carlson, Steve Tereniak, and Laura Clouston.