Research Topics

1. Carbyne radicals

We study the formation and chemistry of free carbyne and carbene radicals in aqueous solution. These species are produced by degradation of metal complexes that contain triple or double metal-carbon bonds in water. An alternative route to obtain these extremely reactive species is by reacting tri- or di-halo alkanes with chromium(II) ions according to:

Both carbynes and carbenes undergo coupling reactions and produce alkynes and alkenes respectively. In addition, they react with solvent molecules and produce a large variety of products.

We study the mechanism by which organo-metallic cluster complexes that contain alkylidyne ligands are formed. We believe that the origin of the alkylidyne group is a free carbyne that reacts with the tri-nuclear framework. We apply ion-exchange chromatography , GC-MS and X-ray crystallography techniques to elucidate the exact mechanism.

2. Organometallic complexes with alkilydine ligands

3. Ferric citrate

Ferric citrate complexes play an important role in the biological mobilization of iron in living cells. Ferric citrate preparations are used in medicine as iron supplements and for imaging purposes. Our goal has been the structural characterization of several ferric citrate complexes and the understanding of the role of each species in biological systems.