Inorganic Chemistry Seminar: Dr. Miguel Gonzalez, Harvard University

Host: Hemamala Karunadasa

"Controlling Chemistry through Confinement"

About the Seminar: 

Confining molecules and materials within structurally defined environments affords precise control over their interactions and reaction pathways. The pore environment in metal–organic frameworks, a class of materials composed of metal ions bridged by organic linkers, can be tailored to bind a variety of chemical species—ranging from gases to metal ions—with high specificity. In particular, a metal–organic framework furnished with coordinating bipyridine sites facilitates the nucleation, growth, and confinement of atomically-defined metal(ii) halide sheets, which exhibit magnetic properties distinct from the bulk metal halides. For molecular complexes, the secondary coordination sphere can be tuned to influence the chemistry of highly reactive intermediates. Specifically, photochemical generation of chorine radicals within the secondary coordination sphere of a series of iron(iii) pyridinediimine complexes enables observation and control of chlorine radical-mediated C–H activation. These results demonstrate that confinement can be leveraged as a powerful tool to dictate both structure and reactivity.

About the Speaker:

Miguel I. Gonzalez received his B.S. in Chemistry from the University of the Philippines, Diliman, under the guidance of Prof. Jim G. Minglana. He obtained his Ph.D in Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley in the research group of Prof. Jeffrey R. Long, where his research focused on the structural characterization of framework–guest interactions in metal–organic frameworks by in situ single-crystal X-ray diffraction and the design of metal–organic frameworks for catalysis. At present, he is a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Prof. Daniel G. Nocera at Harvard University, and his work focuses on observing and controlling the reactivity chlorine radicals and other reactive intermediates.