Title: "Hydride complexes of abundant metals in catalysis"
Abstract: The chiral center of many pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals is installed by the addition of dihydrogen across the C=O or C=N bond of a prochiral ketone or imine catalyzed by a ruthenium or iridium complex containing a homochiral chelating diphosphine ligand. For example, the largest asymmetric hydrogenation industrial process uses a complex of iridium containing a diphosphine with a ferrocene backbone to make an effective herbicide containing an (S)-stereocenter next to an amino group with a very bulky aryl group. I will discuss the development, using a combination of experiment and theory, of some of the first catalysts based on hydride complexes of the abundant and life-essential metals, iron and manganese, for the asymmetric hydrogenation of polar C=O and C=N bonds. The goal is to replace the rare metals, ruthenium and iridium. Along the way, new principles of the chemistry of transition metal hydride complexes have been discovered.
Biography: Prof. Bob Morris received his Ph.D. from the University of British Columbia in 1978 and, after postdoctoral positions at the AFRC Unit of Nitrogen Fixation at the University of Sussex and the Pennsylvania State University, he became an Assistant Professor at the Chemistry Department of the University of Toronto in 1980. He is currently Professor of Chemistry there, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and of the Chemical Institute of Canada. He served as Acting-Chair/Chair of the Chemistry Department 2008-2013. His research interests include inorganic and organometallic chemistry, especially the chemistry of transition metal hydrides and hydrogenation processes. He has won awards from Canada, the UK and most recently the 2025 ACS Award in rganometallic Chemistry.
LOCATION:MIT STATUS:CONFIRMED DTSTART:20250219T210000Z DTEND:20250219T220000Z END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR