The last paper from Dr. Kerry Barnett's dissertation has been published in Inorganic Chemistry in collaboration with the Dixon Group.  This paper provides a detailed structural analysis of the palladium complexes of trineopentylphosphine ligands using computational and experimental data.  The highly flexible trineopentylphosphine ligand adopts a very sterically demanding conformation when coordinated to 1- or 2-coordinate palladium centers.  Unusually, this very sterically demanding ligand is highly pyramidalized due to the low back-side strain of the neopentyl groups.  When coordinated to a 3- or 4-coordinate palladium center, trineopentylphoshine adopts a less sterically demanding conformation.

A paper authored by Kerry Barnett, James Howard, Renee Stullich, Adam Shipley, and Colin Treager entitled, "Air-Stable [(R3P)PdCl2]2 Complexes of Neopentylphosphines as Cross- Coupling Precatalysts: Catalytic Application and Mechanism of Catalyst Activation and Deactivation," was published in Organometallics.  This paper describes the use of [(R3P)PdCl2]2 complexes as catalysts in the Suzuki coupling.  A study of the mechanism of conversion of the Pd(II) precatalyst to the Pd(0) active species showed that palladacycle formation was a competitive pathway in acetonitrile.  Switching the solvent to toluene eliminated formation of the palladacycle byproduct.  This solvent switch allowed a 50-fold decrease in catalyst loading.

Kerry Barnett successfully defended her dissertation entitled, "Air-Stable Palladium(II) Precatalysts: Synthesis, Properties, and Applications in Cross-Coupling Reactions."  Congratulations, Kerry!

Kerry and her committee post defense.  Dr. Ed Lewis (MSU), Dr. Si Blackstock, Kerry, Dr. Mike Jennings, Dr. Paul Rupar, Dr. Kevin Shaughnessy

Shaughnessy group members presented three papers at the 253rd National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in San Francisco.  

"Conformational flexibility as a design element in ligand design for palladium-catalyzed bond-forming reactions," Shaughnessy, K. H. ORGN-368
"Mechanistic investigations of palladium(II) precatalysts: Effects of reaction conditions on precatalyst activity in the Suzuki cross-coupling of aryl bromides," Barnett, K. L. INOR-1164
"Mechanistic study of the bis(trineopentylphosphine) palladium catalyzed Buchwald-Hartwig amination reaction," Hu, H. INOR-814

Congratulations to Kerry Barnett who received first place for her oral presentation at the Lester Andrews Symposium at Mississippi State University.