Alex Oanta Rose Hills
The Synthesis and Reactivity of a Rhenium Dioxo Species
Metal-promoted reactions are frequently utilized in the syntheses of complex organic products that are vital to the pharmaceutical and petroleum industries. With the intention of discovering new, more efficient chemical pathways to otherwise inaccessible or costly organic chemicals, many inorganic chemists devote their careers to the synthesis and study of discrete molecular compounds centered on a well-defined metal ion. Previous reactivity studies on such molecular metal-based compounds support the conjecture that electronically saturating the valence orbitals of a metal with multiple ligands can enhance the reactivity of the electrons involved in the metal-ligand bonds. The goal of this project is to first synthesize a new example of a transition-metal dioxo complex and then investigate its reactivity with industrially-relevant small molecules. Drawing comparisons to previously investigated systems will allow conclusions to be drawn about fundamental organometallic electronic structure and will create new synthetic pathways to value-added chemicals.
Message To Sponsor
I want to thank the Rose Hills foundation so much for this outstanding fellowship program. The encouragement to do research coupled to excellent cluster meeting and support programs, really helped me dive further into my work. I feel more comfortable in investigating graduate school programs now. Seeing many older mentors and speakers doing amazing things with science degrees, reaffirms to me that pursuing science beyond the undergraduate level can be really meaningful, and less of a hobby while more of a working lifestyle. I also appreciated how I could converse about my research with peers through cluster meetings and the SURF conference; I think this also helped me develop my scientific presentation skills.