Discipline/Specialization: Physical/Inorganic Chemistry
Ph.D., North Carolina State, North Carolina, U.S.A.
B.A., Vanderbilt, Tennessee, U.S.A.
Zeolites are aluminosilicates with extended frameworks that give them useful molecular sieving properties. There is great industrial demand for zeolites as catalysts and sorbents. Most of our research efforts have centered on studies of transition metal complexes adsorbed on zeolites. Adsorbed metal carbonyls can react with the zeolite surface or with other adsorbed reactants within the zeolite to produce new complexes. Magic-angle-spinning NMR and diffuse reflectance IR have been the main methods for studying the samples. NMR provides significant information about the mobility of the adsorbed species. Recently, we have studied reactions of group 6 carbonyls with arenes on NaX zeolite. In a separate project, the properties of methyltrioxorhenium within the confines of zeolites X and Y are being investigated.