PhD defence: Ligands with Extended π-Systems - Synthesis, Coordination Chemistry and Reactivity

PLEASE NOTE: The candidate gives a layman's talk, therefore the livestream will start fifteen minutes earlier.

Polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), also called nanographenes, are large, flat molecules made primarily of carbon atoms. While such molecules are found primarily in soot as a by-product of combustion, it is also possible to construct PAHs precisely using “bottom-up” methods.

When nitrogen atoms are incorporated into the structure of PAHs, they are sometimes able to bind metal atoms. In general, molecules that can bind metal atoms are called ligands and the resulting compound is called a metal complex. The complexes can have a variety of uses from medicine to catalysis. Much time is therefore spent on developing new ligands with their own unique set of properties.

PAHs have a number of properties that make them interesting to use as ligands due to their extended π-system. Importantly, the extended π-system can easily take up or give off electrons, for example to a nearby metal atom. As a result, such ligands can not only manipulate the reactivity of the metal in surprising ways, but also bring about interesting reactivity at the ligand itself. Surprisingly then, ligands with such an extended π-system have barely been developed so-far, mostly because they are difficult to make and study. In this thesis, the synthesis of new types of nanographene ligands are described, as well as their binding to metals (coordination chemistry) and their reactivity.