Organic Functional Groups in Templated Solid-State Reactions

University Of Iowa, Iowa City IA

Investigators

Abstract

This award to University of Iowa by the Solid State Materials Chemistry program in the Division of Materials Research is to incorporate organic groups into templated reactions, which are carried out using organic solid state photochemistry. Major goal is to develop methods to incorporate small (e.g. vinyl) and large (e.g. t-butyl) groups, as well as carboxylic acids into the templated reactions, and to construct decorated targets such as cyclophanes and ladderanes. Other aims of the project are to exploit and elaborate to direct these photoreactions using organic templates to make: a) tunable changes in fluorescence emission; and b) non-covalent functionalization of metal-organic polyhedra via anion exchange. This project represents a first attempt to systematically integrate organic functionalities into a dependable method to control bimolecular reactivity in the crystalline state. Success of this project can lead to the designed, solvent-free synthesis of complex molecules and materials with tunable properties. In addition, structure-property relationships developed in this project could also be applied to additional solid-state reactions. The proposed educational activities will involve integration of the proposed research activities into the undergraduate curriculum by developing an inorganic laboratory experiment course that focuses upon single-crystal-to-single-crystal transformations. As part of outreach educational activities, ?Working Weekends? workshops on X-ray crystallography and powder diffraction will be expanded to include both lectures and experiments. This outreach activity will be extended via cyberinfrastructure and through the development of a mobile X-ray unit. A published organic laboratory experiment, as well as a new inorganic experiment course will be disseminated electronically to students and faculty members of the local area colleges via the internet on the educational website. This website is being further developed by the PI to make it available for laboratory experiments in supramolecular chemistry.