Date of Award

Spring 2026

Document Type

Thesis

Terms of Use

© 2026 Elizabeth N. S. Ting. This work is freely available courtesy of the author. It may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license. For all other uses, please contact the copyright holder.

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Chemistry & Biochemistry Department

First Advisor

Christopher R. Graves

Abstract

The development of new strategies for bond activation remains an important goal in chemistry. Element-ligand cooperative (ELC) chemistry using abundant main-group elements has emerged as a promising strategy for enabling bond activation without relying on traditional transition-metal redox chemistry. In this work, the reactivity of Group 13 complexes supported by a tripodal tris(nitroxide) ligand, (TriNOx3-)M (M = Al (1), Ga (2); TriNOx3- = [{(2tBuNO)C6H4CH2}3N] 3-), was investigated toward halomethanes. This reactivity leads to the formation of the ligand-protonated metal halide species (HTriNOx2-)M–X. To support this product assignment, the chloro species, (HTriNOx2-)M–Cl, was synthesized through multiple alternative routes and was characterized spectroscopically by multinuclear NMR spectroscopy and structurally using single-crystal X-ray diffraction. The scope of this reactivity encompasses a range of halocarbons, including CH2Cl2, CH2Br2, CHCl3, and CCl4. Comparative studies showed that both metal identity and substrate structure influence reaction rate and outcome. Preliminary kinetic and isotopic labeling studies provide a foundation for future mechanistic investigation of this transformation.

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