Apr 12
Chemistry Department Seminar: Dr. Igor Alabugin, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Florida State University, Tallahassee
The Jerry and Jean Mohrig Lecture
"Accumulating energy to drive chemical reactions: from stereoelectronic frustration to electron upconversion"
Molecules store energy and, as bonds are formed and broken, every chemical process can either store or release energy. This talk will discuss practical ways for incorporating this common knowledge into reaction design and in searching for new physical phenomena.
After introducing familiar textbook functionalities that accumulate more energy than an excited state, I will show how one can make formation of any reactive intermediate thermodynamically feasible and how to control the flow of energy in chemical reactions by coupling unfavorable and favorable elementary steps.
In the final part, I will introduce the phenomenon of electron upconversion, a counterintuitive way to transform weak reductants into strong reductants in a thermodynamically favorable fashion. Such processes enable electrocatalytic transformations where a single electron or hole can drive multiple catalytic cycles.
*This seminar counts towards the chemistry major seminar attendance requirement for all majors not doing comps this year.
from Chemistry