From Coello To Inorganic Chemistry

From boyhood in the coal-mining village of Coello, Illinois, to winning the Priestly Medal and becoming the president of the American Chemical Society, Professor Emeritus Fred Basolo of Northwestern University traces the intertwined development of his life, career, and the field of inorganic chemistry. With over a hundred photographs and dozens of structures and equations, From Coello to Inorganic Chemistry details the major innovations, travels, family life, and guests hosted while helping to build one of the world's leading inorganic chemistry departments from its humble beginnings at Northwestern University. Students and chemists with interests in bioinorganic chemistry, catalysis, nanoscience, new materials research, and organometallics can follow the emergence of inorganic chemistry as a rival to organic chemistry through the accomplishments of one of its most influential pioneers.

The serious study of the reaction mechanisms of transition metal com plexes began some five decades ago. Work was initiated in the United States and Great Britain; the pioneers ofthat era were, inalphabetical order, F. Basolo, R. E. Connick, 1. O. Edwards, C. S. Garner, G. P.Haight, W. C. E. Higgision, E.1. King, R. G. Pearson, H. Taube, M.1. Tobe, and R. G. Wilkins.A larger community of research scientists then entered the field, many of them stu dents ofthose just mentioned. Interest spread elsewhere as well, principally to Asia, Canada, and Europe. Before long, the results ofindividual studies were being consolidated into models, many of which traced their origins to the better-established field of mechanistic organic chemistry. For a time this sufficed, but major revisions and new assignments of mechanism became necessary for both ligand sub stitution and oxidation-reduction reactions. Mechanistic inorganic chemistry thus took on a shape of its own. This process has brought us to the present time. Interests have expanded both to include new and more complex species (e.g., metalloproteins) and a wealth of new experimental techniques that have developed mechanisms in ever-finer detail. This is the story the author tells, and in so doing he weaves in the identities of the investigators with the story he has to tell. This makes an enjoyable as well as informative reading.

In this brief, renowned inorganic chemist Jay Labinger tracks the development of his field from a forgotten specialism to the establishment of an independent, intellectually viable discipline. Inorganic chemistry, with a negation in its very name, was long regarded as that which was left behind when organic and physical chemistry emerged as specialist fields in the 19th century. Only by the middle of the 20th century had it begun to gain its current stature of equality to that of the other main branches of chemistry. The author discusses the evidence for this transition, both quantitative and anecdotal and includes consideration of the roles of local and personal factors, with particular focus on Caltech as an illustrative example. This brief is of interest both to historians of science and inorganic chemists who would like to find out how their field began.

Overlooked, even despised by historians of chemistry for many years, the genre of biography has enjoyed a revival since the beginning of this century. The key to its renaissance is the use of the biographical form to provide a contextual analysis of important themes in contrast to the uncritical, almost hagiographic, lives of chemists written in the earlier part of the twentieth century. Bringing together the contributions of scholars active in several different countries, Perspectives on Chemical Biography in the 21st Century leads the reader through emerging questions around sources, and the generic problems faced by authors of biographies, before moving on to discuss aspects more related with physical, theoretical and inorganic chemistry, and facets of 19th century chemistry. In contrast to the letters and diaries of earlier chemists, we are now faced with scientists who communicate by telephone and email, and compose their documents on computers. Are we facing a modern equivalent of the destruction of the Library of Alexandria where all our sources are wiped out electronically?

This invaluable book distils the research accomplishments of Professor Fred Basolo during the five decades when he served as a world leader in the modern renaissance of inorganic chemistry. Its primary focus is on the very important area of chemistry known as coordination chemistry. Most of the elements in the periodic table are metals, and most of the chemistry of metals involves coordination chemistry. This is the case in the currently significant areas of research, including organometallic homogenous catalysis, biological reactions of metalloproteins, and even the solid state extended structures of new materials. In these systems, the metals are of primary importance because they are the sites of ligand substitution or redox reactions. In the solid materials, the coordination number of the metal and its stereochemistry are of major importance. Some fifty years of research on transition metal complexes carried out in the laboratory of Professor Basolo at Northwestern University is recorded here as selected scientific publications. The book is divided into three different major research areas, each dealing with some aspect of coordination chemistry. In each case, introductory remarks are presented which indicate what prompted the research projects and what the major accomplishments were. Although the research was of the academic, curiosity-driven type, some aspects have proven to be useful to others involved in projects that were much more applied in nature. Contents: Ligand Substitution Reactions of Transition Metal ComplexesApplication of Reaction Mechanisms to the Synthesis of Metal ComplexesCarbon Monoxide Substitution Reactions of Metal CarbonylsMetal Nitrosyl CarbonylsCatalysis of CO Substitution in Metal CarbonylsMigratory Insertion ReactionsOxygen Atom Transfer to Metal CarbonylsSynthetic Oxygen Carries of Biological Interestand other papers Readership: Researchers in the solution of metals, as well as bioinorganic, organometallic and solid state chemistry. Keywords:Coordination Chemistry;Metal Complexes;Transition Metals;Inorganic Chemistry;Biochemistry

Since the discovery of ferrocene and the sandwich-type complexes, the development of organometallic chemistry took its course like an avalanche and became one of the scientific success stories of the second half of the twentieth century. Based on this development, the traditional boundaries between inorganic and organic chemistry gradually disappeared and a rebirth of the nowadays highly important field of homogeneous catalysis occurred. It is fair to say that despite the fact that the key discovery, which sparked it all off, was made more than 50 years ago, organometallic chemistry remains a young and lively discipline.