Date of Award

Spring 2024

Document Type

Thesis

Terms of Use

© 2024 Vivian W. Guo. This work is freely available courtesy of the author. It may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license . For all other uses, please contact the copyright holder.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Chemistry & Biochemistry Department

First Advisor

Christopher R. Graves

Abstract

The activation of H–X (X = O, N, C) bonds is a common primary step in introducing alcohols, amines, and hydrocarbons into catalytic processes used in various industries. Precious metal complexes are commonly used as catalysts to activate H–X bonds through formal metal-based oxidative addition. However, since precious metals are scarce, expensive, toxic, and environmentally harmful, developing non-precious metal coordination complexes for H–X bond activation is essential. As a result, we investigate the activation of O–H, N–H, and C–H bonds through tripodal tris(nitroxide) aluminum and gallium complexes to develop a green strategy for broad-based H–X bond activation. Past members of the Graves Group studied the reactivities of the tripodal tris(nitroxide) aluminum and gallium complexes with alcohols. They found out these complexes can activate O–H bonds, with both alcohol acidity and metal center lewis acidity affecting the reactivity of these complexes with alcohols. In this study, we investigated the reactivities of the tripodal tris(nitroxide) Al and Ga complexes with amines and hydrocarbons to determine whether these complexes can activate N–H and C–H bonds. If so, we aim to understand how substrate acidity and metal center lewis acidity affect these reactivities.

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