Events Calendar

Ellen Matson, Associate Professor of Chemistry at the University of Rochester

https://www.sas.rochester.edu/chm/people/faculty/matson-ellen/index.html

Actinide Complexes of Molybdenum Chalcogenide Clusters: "The chemical and electronic interactions between actinide ions and redox active surfaces is an important area of research, with implications in the front- and back-end processing of nuclear fuels. In this context, group(VI) chalcogenide materials demonstrate potential for selectively extracting uranium from seawater as a result of enhanced electronic communication between actinide and the redox-active surfaces. Motivated by these results, our research group is investigating the synthesis of actinide-substituted molybdenum chalcogenide clusters. The first part of this talk will describe the use of a preformed lacunary, Lindqvist-type, polyoxomolybdate-alkoxide cluster. We are able to generate the first examples of actinide-polyoxomolybdate sandwich complexes, (TBA)₂[An{Mo₅O₁₃(OMe)₄NO}₂] (An = Th, U), isolated under non-aqueous conditions. Oxidation of the uranium containing sandwich complex (TBA)₂[U{Mo₅O₁₃(OMe)₄NO}₂], chemically or electrochemically, allows facile access to the U(V) centered species, which was characterized both spectroscopically and by single crystal X-ray diffraction. Subsequently, this talk will further describe recent findings from our group summarizing the use of a redox-active metalloligand, (Cp*₃Mo₃S₄), which serves as a single binding site for actinides. The compound of interest, (Cp*₃Mo₃S₄)Cp*UI₂, offers valuable insights into the unique interactions between actinide species and redox-active surfaces. Most notably, this cluster is found to serve as an effective model system for considering the mechanisms of small molecule activation by low-valent single atom uranium catalysts at MoS₂ surfaces. "